


u* 



ShelfX)-^_U 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



362 tl)f "Sai^c 3[uti)or. 

♦ 

THE LIFE AND TIMES 



Sir Philip Sidney. 

A Memorial of one whose name is a Syttoftym for 
every Manly Virtue. 

By Mrs. S. M. Henry Davis. 

Illustrated with Three Steel Plates : 

Portrait of Sidney ; 

View of Penshurst Castle ; 

Fac-Simile of Sidney's Manuscript. 

i2mo. Cloth, bevelled, stamped in ink and gold with 
Sidney's Coat of Arms, $1.50. 



FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT, 

Publishers^ New York. 



Norway Nights 

^ Rttssian Days, 



J 



'-'TOvffl:|ftt'££!^:: 



















.Skjaeggedalsfos 



Frontispiece. 



Norway Nights 

^ Russian Days. 



(1 / 

Ik/ BY ' 

^W, sf^M. HENRY DAVIS, 



y 



AUTHOR OF "life AND TIMES OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY." 



S[ cS '^•^^ VA^i-^ ,'-^' ' J ' 



liii} Numerous Sllustrati'onjBL 




Noywegiati Peasant. 



AUG .31 1887 

NEW YORK: 

FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT. 

1887. 



Copyright, in 1887, 
By S. M. Henry Davis. 



lor COlfOEESS 
llMSHINOTON 






V 



\i 



\»^ 



A 




^0 

/ INSCRIBE THIS RECORD OF A 
PLEASANT SUMMER TOUR. 



CONTENTS. 



JVORIVAV NIGHTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Setting Out, 17 

II. Christianta, 28 

III. The GUDI5RANSDAL, 53 

IV. The Romsdal, 92 

V. Trondhjem iiS 

VI. The Arctic Ocean 129 

VII. Hammerfest, 155 

VIII. North Cape and Midni(;ht Sun, . . . 162 

IX. The Return Voyage, 171 

X. Sw'EY.D^U {Par Parenthese) iSi 

XI. Yl^'LA^n {An P^pisode), 202 

liCSSIAX DAYS. 
I. St. Petersburg 213 

The Shops : The Cathedral : Palaces and Museums. 

II. Moscow, 262 

The Streets : The Kremlin : The Kremlin — Palaces: 

The Kremlin — Churches : Russian Monastic Insti-. 

tulions • In General. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 

PAGE 

Skjaeggedalsfos, Frontispiece 

Norse Viking Galley, i6 

Ancient Church — Hitterdal, 38 

Old Norwegian Silver Brooch, 40 

Remains of Viking Ship — Showing Shields, ... 44 

Remains of Viking Ship — Starboard, 48 

Norwegian Kariol, 59 

Peasant Woman — Holiday Dress, 68 

Kitchen at Stueflatten, 89 

Church in Gudbransdal, 97 

Geiranger Fiord, 108 

In Trondhjem Cathedral, 122 

Apse of St. Olaf's Cathedral, 126 

Laplander, 148 

Lapp Wedding Ring, 150 

Lapp Wo/nan and Baby, 153 

Hammerfest, 159 

Midnight Sun — North Cape, 166 

Trollhatten Falls — Sweden, 186 

Swedish Peasant and Baby, 191 

Dalecarlian (Swedish) Costume, 199 



1 4 ILL US TRA TIONS. 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 

PAGE 

A Russian Church, 212 

Russian Coachman, 218 

Cossack Officer, 225 

The Neva — The Bridge — St. Isaac's, ..... 231 

The Kremlin — Moscow 261 

Russian Costume (Woman), 265 

Russian Peasant . 267 

Wine Seller in Moscow Market, 271 

Game Vendor in Moscow Market, 275 

Ivan Tower, Kremlin, 281 

Spasski (Redeemer) Gate, Kremlin, 286 

Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, Kremlin, . 303 

Church of St. Basil, 317 

V hettre qui plait a voire Majeste, 325 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



SETTING OUT. 



" Thor had two ravens, Hugin and Mugin, who flew all over 
the world and brought him news from every quarter." 

T N (.lefiance of the conservative old adage, a party 
-'■ of three roUing stones started out to gather 
moss in Norway and its adjacent countries. 
Moreover, they did gather it : rich, vivid, aro- 
matic, health-giving to mind and body, joy in 
acquisition, a treasure in memory. 

The progress of the travellers developed har- 
mony of purpose, of disposition, and of taste ; 
and the tour was also singularly favored by the ele- 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 



ments and by circumstances : no cold, no heat ; 
timely showers, but not one day of rain ; no failure 
to meet trains or steamers ; the best rooms in the 
best hotels ; obliging landlords and civil attendants 
everywhere. They had wisely started earl}- in the 
season, before managers became excited and ser- 
vants overworked b}' the pressure of tourists, 
while rooms were fresh and visitors fair to behold. 
But yet more of their comfort was due to the 
gC)od and kindly nature of the Scandinavians 
Avhe)se territory they invaded. Anglo-Saxons of 
to-dav are paying back the incursions of the old 
Norse pirates a thousand years ago, but with bet- 
ter feeling on both sides. 

This pleasant journey of three women — neither 
*'lone" nor "lorn"' — began the first day of June, 
1886. .There is a choice in the liquid paths to 
Norway. One is from Hull or Newcastle in 
England by the North Sea to Bergen ; another, in 
smoother waters, from Danish Copenhagen to 



SETTING OUT. 19 



Christiania ; and a third line of steamers, swift 
and well appointed, has lately l)een built to sail 
from Aberdeen to the western coast of Norway, 
taking in the })rincipal places there, and also run- 
ning away up to the North Cape. 

It pleased us better, with perhaps an instinct of 
the kind embodietl in the proverb — Reculer pour 
micux sauier — to first turn southward. Thus^ 
after receiving a benediction in Cologne Cathedral, 
we glitled slowly up the river which is so vain of 
its castles and clamorous of its legends, to gay, 
complacent Frankfort ; thence, turning northward 
again, we paused at Cassel, which redeems its 
commonplace streets b}' its Auegarten, one of the 
most beautiful public parks in Germany, dignified 
by su))erb oaks and a winding river, — and which 
also boasts of an admirable picture-gallery, and of 
the castle and park of Wilhelmshohe where Napo- 
leon III. was a reluctant "guest" after his fatal 
defeat at Sedan. Another day we gave t(^ pros- 



20 JVOJ^^AV NIGHTS. 

perous, pretty Hanover, and two or three to 
Hamburg, where we enjoyed its gay gardens, its 
charming Alster promenade, and its general air of 
success. It was on the menu of the Hamburger 
Hof that we were offered a sort of fritter with the 
unmeaning name of ' ' Armer Ritter, " and an arti- 
cle called " Lieder ohne Worte," which of course 
ought to have been a dish of skylarks, but was 
merely beefsteak with a mysterious sauce. Next in 
order on our chart was the railway, still northward, 
across the mnch-bequestioned Schleswig-Holstein to 
the little town of Kiel, which although not large 
is important, being the home-station of the princi- 
pal part of the German navy, that finds both refuge 
and anchorage in its deep fiord. From Kiel one 
goes by steam around the eastern islands of Den- 
mark nine or ten hours to Copenhagen. 

The shores of the fiord are pleasing, but not 
salient ; many islands dot the waters,. ^nd the vil- 
lages resemble toy hamlets with bright }'ellow 



SETTING OUT. 2 1 



houses and red roofs. The steamer was severely 
clean, and gratuitously furnished minute guide- 
books in various languages, those in English 
being peculiarly eulogistic of "the view of the 
aspect of the sceneries. " 

Here we first heard the language of Denmark 
and Norway, rather blunt and unmusical, and 
with so slight analogy to any other that memory 
retains it with difficulty. A few nouns and 
phrases for travelling purposes are of course de- 
sirable, and well worth the trouble of acquiring. 
In fact, it is better to take a good deal of trouble 
rather than endure the humiliating sense of help- 
less idiocy in a foreign land. One is uncon- 
sciously apt to fancy that with the accents of a 
new language one must receive new ideas, as if 
the problems of thought might clear themselves 
through strange articulations — a delusion quickly 
dispelled when we find that such mystic syllables 
as "Ver saa god luk op doren og luk vinduet 



2 2 MO/^fVAV NIGHTS. 

igjen"' convey no deeper meaning than '''■ Please 
shut the door and open the window." 

Copenhagen, as seen on the surface, did not 
appeal forcibly to our interest. The streets are 
broad, modern, and indistinctive. There are 
pretty drives — one especially around the harbor, 
where hundreds of masts with foreign and native 
flags are etched against the evening sky — and an in- 
dented coast studded with trees, well ' ' composed "' 
as a picture. On a wooded hill above is a sub- 
stantial, comfortable-looking Mariner's Home, a 
pleasing contrast to the wretched boarding-houses 
and drinking-caves, where those homeless sea-birds 
often find their only refuge. The old castle of 
Rosenberg standing in a fine park is curious as 
the residence of a long line of Danish kings, 
whose ugly portraits decorate the stuffy interior. 
One could readily believe that the handsome win- 
dows in old German style had never admitted 
fresh air since the last breath of the last of the 



%. 



SETTING OUT. 



"Christians" had feebly floated through them. 
The good-looking Hercules who conducted us 
through the rooms told us, in excellent and hu- 
morous English, several anecdotes of these de- 
funct royalties, and exhibited, with an interest that 
became contagious, their quaintly-embroidered 
satin coats and dresses, old jewel- and snuff-boxes, 
watches, gold goblets, silver andirons, and much 
more of that indescribable lumber which becomes 
either art-treasure or rubbish according to the 
taste of succeeding ages. Our cicerone's air of 
bonhomie and pleasant jests indicated a social 
grade quite above that of an ordinary guide; and 
the perplexing question whether or not to. offer 
him the customary fee nearly proved our disgrace. 
Fortunately he relieved onir unexpressed dilemma 
by indicating that the servant whom he had or- 
dered to bring us a branch of lilac-blossoms 
would not object to a gratuity. We afterwards 
learned that he was by no means the ordinary 



24 NO J? WAV NIGHTS. 



showman, but the " Herr Direktor" of the palace, 
and inferred that it was probably for the mere 
pleasure of talking that he had played the part 
of Boswell to his dead lions. 

The principal object of interest in Copenhagen 
is Thorwaldsen's gallery, which occupies three 
stories in a large building erected for that pur- 
pose, and contains the original casts of nearly all 
his works. Although his sculptures are familiar 
objects all over Europe, and plaster copies are 
universal, only here does one realize the creative 
power and manual industry of the genial sculptor. 
The most interesting of his later productions is an 
unfinished life-size statue of himself leaning on 
a youthful figure of Hope. In this as in all por- 
traits of him there is an almost childlike sweet- 
ness of expression, as well as vivacious intelligence 
in his strongly-marked features. There are sev- 
eral lions in plaster and marble, but they give 
only a faint impression of the magnificent crea- 



SETTIXG OUT. 25 



ture carved in the face of the rock at Lucerne, 
where, overshadowed b}- lofty trees, his gigantic 
body reflected in the water, but unapproachable to 
the profane touch of the curious, he lies dying, 
alone, in pathetic majesty. 

This temple of art is built around a court in 
the centre of which is the artist's grave ; utterly 
simple, in accordance with his directions : only 
an ivy-covered mound enclosed by low slabs of 
granite, with the name " Thorwaldsen" carved 
on one side, on another the dates of his birth 
and death — that single word his all-sufficient 
eulogy. 

When leaving Copenhagen we quite forgot that 
the sail to Elsinore would lead us to the alleged 
locality of Hamlet's grave, marked by a heap of 
stones ; but as that young hero's life is by latest 
researches supposed to antedate the Christian Era 
by two hundred years, one may be pardoned for 
not sacrificing on so mythical a shrine. 



26 JVOJ^M^^AV NIGHTS. 



We embarked for Christiania on the fine Danish 
steamer Melchio?' ; but as it came from Stettin 
with full complement of passengers, we were un- 
able to obtain private sleeping-cabins, and it be- 
came a serious question whether we should not 
be obliged to sit up all night. Happily, the cap- 
tain's kindness, added to a slight knowledge of 
English and German, came to the rescue, and he 
ordered the large deck-saloon to be placed at our 
disposal after lo p.m. This was the first of a 
series of gratuitous courtesies which we received 
from the chief officers of ten different steamers in 
northern waters ; for which we hold them in 
grateful remembrance. 

Here was our first noticeable experience of a 
June sunrise in higher latitudes. Wakened at 
half-past two by the light glowing through uncur- 
tained windows, I stepped on deck to breathe 
the first freshness of that perfect day. The sky 
was scintillant with opaline hues ; the water, a 



SETTING OUT. 21 



tremulous mass of jewels in the wake of the 
golden sun : and the beauty was even heightened 
by solitude, for not a creature was visible, save one 
red-capped sailor at the prow. 



CHAPTER II. 



CHRISTIANIA. 



% 



THE voyage to Christiania is made in about 
twenty hours, and during at least half that 
time the ship steers between verdant islands of 
various forms and sizes. The fiord that leads 
directly from the Baltic to Christiania is fifty miles 
long, including the Kattegat and Skagger Rack of 
childish amusement in foreign names, narrow- 
ing and widening between Denmark and Sweden, 
— a very picturesque arm of the sea, enlivened by 
sailing-boats and steamers, flecked with islands, 
and bounded by fertile, sometimes pine-clad, hills 
dotted with pleasant-looking villas. 

The new capital of Norway is unmarked by 
steeples or any salient architectural lines. As we 
neared the harbor, a little fleet of twenty sailing- 



CHRISTIAXIA. 29 



vessels glided towards us, simulating, in the morn- 
ing mist that now partially obscured the sun, a 
procession of white robed and hooded Carmelite 
monks, in twos and threes, the smaller ones be- 
hind in pictural perspective, going out to morning 
prayer. The beauty of that June morning, and of 
the lovely panorama, might well inspire a Te 
Deum laudamus. 

Here we were at last, in the Norway of our 
dreams — very different dreams from those of the 
Orient, of Italy and Spain : a land of the grandly 
picturesque, dark and stern in most of its moods 
as were the anthropomorphic gods of its pagan 
days, and with a simple, honest, practical people 
who are the antipodes of Southern fire and Eastern 
guile. 

As the landing-plank was secured to the quay, 
a few porters and cabmen stood quietly wait- 
ing, some of whom came on board with grave 
salutations, and carried off on their stalwart shoul- 



# 



30 A■0/^H^'AV NIGHTS. 

ders the boxes of a hundred or more equally tran- 
quil passengers. No one shrieked or pushed or 
lost temper, and yet the end was accomplishetl 
without these ordinary motors. The custom- 
house officers, with national trust in the probity 
of their fellow-beings, rherely asked for a declara- 
tion, without opening a trunk. 

We soon found ourselves in such attractive 
rooms at the Victoria Hotel that we said in our 
hearts, ' ' Let us abide here forever. '" It was not a 
"grand hotel," — happily we were not doomed in 
Norway to those mocking hostelries that are fain 
to pass themselves off as palaces, and to give you 
the minimum of comfort with the maximum of 
price,— but a serene ^z/(25-/-home, where one re- 
ceives the respectful tribute of his own name, and 
is not stigmatized as Number Twenty-nine. In 
our "ideal tour,"" as we fondly called it, we es- 
caped that obloquy everywhere. We breakfasted 
here in a veranda open on one side to a garden, 



'^^^fe 




CHRISTIAN! A. 



and profusely decorated on the others with polar- 
bear skins, eider - down rugs, reindeer and elk 
heads and antlers, a collection of antique silver 
ornaments, carved-wood trifles, eider-ducks and 
auks that looked alive but for their immobility, 
besides enticing photographs of waterfalls and 
mountains. The prettiest-mannered little thing in 
feathers hopped on the back of a chair close by 
our table, cocked his head on one side inquiringly, 
but without even the chirp of a petition : evi- 
dently a reconnoitring party sent out to scan the 
resources and disposition of the enemy ; for when 
an amicable volley of crumbs was projected to- 
wards him he flew away, but presently returned 
with half a dozen of his tiny brothers. 

The dining-room was a pretty pavilion in the 
garden, covered with striped red and white linen ; 
from the roof were suspended with friendly inter- 
national effect the flags of various countries ; a 
huge mass of sparkling ice rose like a glacier from 



32 NO/^WAV NIGHTS. 

the centre of the table, around which gathered 
Danes, Swedes, Germans, one or two Frenchmen 
(who always look out of place when out of 
France), and Englishmen garrulous of prospective 
spoils in trout and reindeer haunts. Some years 
as^o Norway was an El Dorado of freedom for 
sportsmen, but several Englishmen have purchased 
or leased large estates of the best salmon-grounds 
(or waters), and the government now exacts a tax 
on public lands of two hundred to three hundred 
krone (or ten to fifteen pounds sterling) for the 
season. Salmon - fishing is not now to be ob- 
tained ; but other fishing is always at hand, and 
reindeer may be hunted if one will take a guide to 
their mountain haunts and accept the hardships 
involved in the pursuit of creatures so shv and 
keen-scented. Sleeping on straw in a leaky hut 
or under a snow-covered rock, with only milk and 
oat-cakes to live upon, certainly demands the 
noble incentive of "something to kilk" 



CHRISTIANIA. H 



Christiania, which replaced a much older town, 
was founded in 1624 by Christian IV. of Den- 
mark. It is built mostly of stone, the original 
city of wood having suffered from many confla- 
grations ; the streets are broad to avoid this dan- 
ger, and the houses low, generally only two stories. 
It cannot be called architecturally handsome, but 
has a few fine streets, the best of which contains 
the principal shops and has a lively aspect. At 
one end is the Storthing, or Parliament House, 
a more curious than happy combination of Ro- 
manesque and Renaissance styles outside, but very 
comfortable within. The other terminus is a 
pretty park which leads to a hill of moderate 
height, on which stands the very plain but sub- 
stantial royal palace. In front of this edifice is a 
statue of Bernadotte, first king of Sweden and 
Norway, on a pedestal carved with the words. 



" The people's love is my reward. 



W -O^ 



34 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

■ — a sentiment which during at least the early part 
of his reign was rather more theoretical than prac- 
tical ; for Norway, wrested from Denmark after a 
union of four hundred years by the haute politique 
of Russia and Sweden combined, was much more 
disposed to receive the parvenu monarch with 
cuffs than with kisses, and with pardonable patri- 
otism resisted all attempts to infringe upon its free 
Constitution. However, not to plunge unduly 
into history, Bernadotte, successful adventurer, 
soldier, and statesman as he was, had wisdom 
enough to make many popular concessions, and 
his successors have proved acceptable rulers. But 
it is evident even to a passing traveller that the 
old jealousies are not quite effaced between the 
united kingdoms. Norway clings proudly and 
fondly to the traditions and institutions of 
' ' Gammle Norge"" — old Norway — and observes 
with considerable pride the anniversary of May 
17, 1 8 14, when the mutual rights of king and 



CHRIS T/A XI A. 35 



people were clearly defined and guaranteed by the 
allied powers. The government is more republi- 
can than monarchical ; there is no hereditary no- 
bility ; the two houses of Parliament combine 
much freedom with judicious checks upon each 
other ; a bill which has passed through both 
houses of three successive assemblies of parlia- 
ment ma\' become a law without the roval assent ; 
and there are reasonable property qualifications 
for the privilege of voting. 

The interior of the palace is utterly unpalatial, 
the only objects worth looking at being a few 
pictures by the most celebrated native artists, 
Tiderman and Ciude. The Queen's apartments 
are ver}- unpretending, but ha\e a happy air from 
the numerous photographs and portraits that 
cover walls and tables. We noticed a picture of 
a sheaf of oats hanging from a window in winter- 
time, and were told that it illustrated the prett\- 
custom of giving Christmas dinner to the birds. 



36 JVOJ^lVAV NIGHTS. 

The broad balcony of the palace commands a 
charming view of the city, the neighboring hills 
dotted with villas, the bay flecked with white sails, 
and the graceful curves of the shore. The castle 
of Agershaus, six hundred years old, stands promi- 
nently on one of the hills, a fortress and also a 
prison. A story is told of an adroit criminal, the 
Robin Hood of Norway, who was long ago im- 
prisoned here in a room formed of thick iron bars. 
After having several times eluded the jailers (once 
by breaking into the inspector's room while that 
official was at church, dressing in his clothes and 
quietly walking out of the city), he was consigned 
to a deep dungeon underneath the strongest part 
of the fortress, whence escape seemed impossible. 
But like Love he laughed at bolts and bars, cut 
through the heavy planks of the flooring, and 
made an outlet under the walls. Not long after 
he robbed a bank of a large amount, so mysteri- 
ously as to leave no trace on either door or locks ; 



CHRIS TIAXIA . 3 7 



and finally, on being again imprisoned, gave the 
last turn to his fate by hanging himself. 

A well-shaded drive up the hills brought us to 
the little summer palace called Oscar's Hall, 
which seems to have no raison d'etre except the 
view, the rooms being small and nearly bare. 
0\\ the dining-room walls hang a set of paint- 
ings by Tiderman, depicting with great charm of 
color and form Norwegian peasant-life from in- 
fanc}- to old age. The favorite subjects of this 
popular artist were taken from his own people, 
and j)robably no one has given the world so faith- 
ful an idtia of their characteristics. On his crowded 
canvas is no indistinctness or confusion ; the 
grouping is artistic, and the varied and marked 
expressions of face an admirable study. 

A few steps from Oscar's Hall there stands on a 
grassy slope a very small wooden chapel, which is 
a most fantastic piece of architecture, and closely 
resembles a ver}- ancient one at Borgund, and an- 



38 



JVOJ^JVAV NIGHTS. 




Ancient Church. 



Other at Hitterdal near Bergen. The interior, 
which will not hold more than fifty people, has 
no windows, and light is admitted only from the 



CHRISTIANIA. 39 



two doors ; a covered balcony runs all around the 
building, and a lofty indescribable roof surmounts 
it, ornamented with serpents twined together, and 
dragons' heads, more Chinese than European. In 
the other churches of the same sort are relics of 
pagan forms of worship. 

Nearly opposite this " Gammle Kirke" is a 
quaint old peasant-house containing furniture, 
kitchen utensils, beds, and the family Bible pre- 
cisely as they were left two hundred years ago ; 
and at that time the low-raftered ceiling, tiny win- 
dows, and painfully short beds in close alcoves or 
bunks were perhaps considered a ' ' grateful shel- 
ter. 

There is a flourishing small university in Chris- 
tiania, and an interesting museum, with a picture- 
gallery containing some good paintings by native 
artists, all of whom, however, study in Dusseldorf 
or Paris, as there is no school of art in Norwa\ . 
The ethnographical department illustrates the 



40 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 



household hfe of two centuries ago in carved fur- 
niture, quaint utensils, silver ornaments, spoons 
and cups. There is great skill exhibited in this 
work, especially in the filigree : in all the towns, 




Old Norwegian Brooch. 



and even in the villages, silversmiths are numerous. 
The antique spoons are awkward in shape, but 
the handles are often curiously wrought. In those 
made by the Laplanders, found farther north, 



CHRISTIAN/A. 41 



small, finely-chased rings are inserted ; silver 
brooches and wedding-rings were similarly 
adorned, as well as by rows of gilded ornaments, 
like the bowl of a salt-spoon. Modern collectors 
have swept away the greater part of these interest- 
ing relics ; in a short time there will be scarcely 
an old spoon left outside of museums. Hitherto 
the peasants emigrating to America have often 
sold their silver heirlooms ; but they never part 
with them if they can help it. Among these 
curios is one group that brings a shudder — the 
girdle and knives used in the duel which pre- 
vailed among the lower classes until about sixty 
years ago. The combatants began by driving 
their knives into a piece of wood ; that portion of 
each blade not buried in the wood was bound 
around with strips of leather, leaving for use 
only the part which the wielder had been able to 
stab into the wood. The men were now placed 
close together face to face, the girdle around both, 



42 JVO/^JVAV NIGHTS. 

securely buckled so that neither could release him- 
self; their knives were handed them, and they 
fought till one of them gave out. This coarse 
and horrible mode of settling a grievance was 
known as ''the duel of the girdle." It is said that 
as these duels were almost certain to be fatal to 
one or both parties, every man's wife used to 
carry a winding-sheet to banquets where quarrels 
were likely to arise from jealousy or intoxica- 
tion. 

In the picturesque market-place stands the old- 
est church, the interest of which is all on the out- 
side, looking down upon the vendors of domestic 
wares, scanty vegetables and fruits, the best of 
which at this season are the fragrant little • wild 
strawberries. 

Two or three days are quite sufficient for a good 
view of Christiania, including the near excursions, 
for its area contains only one hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants. A local guide-book, 



CHRISTIAN/A. 43 



"printed at expenses of the author," contains 
some amusing specimens of EngHsh learned in 
Norway. He says, " In Oslo is the very old Oslo 
church situated. It is built in a very old style and 
is very old. " He mentions "several establishments 
for informations, destinated for boys and girls, 
together with many others establishments founded 
for more specially use." He proudly enumerates 
the "not quite inconsiderable" manufactories of 
Christiania, among which is a " fabric for pack 
of cards;" and says, "the streets are altogether 
well-pavemented and in the night lightened with 
gas." The Hotel Victoria "is undergone several 
new amendments after the present pretensions," 
and ' ' is put to the stranger's disposition for it 
exists no public restauration there." The stranger 
is advised to " accord with the coachman so as 
to escape later incommodations, " and invited to a 
"great plain which is used for exercising the sol- 
diers of every arms ; these march off from the city 



CHRIS TIA NTA . 45 



in the morning and return in the evening ; no 
more notice of this "' ! The table of contents in- 
cludes ''atrip to the Madhouse," "a trip to the 
deafs and dumbs, " "the fire-stopping apparates, *' 
and other equally well-defined sights. 

The most interesting object to be seen in the 
city of Christiania is the celebrated Viking ship 
which was found buried at Gokstad, a little town, 
on the southern coast in a tumulus called the 
King's Mound, from the tradition that a king had 
been buried there with his valuables. 

But, as all the world now knows, the Vikings 
and the Sea-Kings were two distinct classes of 
Norse folk ; the latter being really of royal race, 
while the former were roving pirates who found 
refuge for their long rowing-galleys in the vicks, or 
creeks, of the coast. Probably in modern Ameri- 
can parlance we should call them Creekers ; still. 
Viking has a royal and romantic sound, and we 
will not give it up. Doubtless they were for- 



46 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



midable in their time, whatever we may now call 
them. 

In 1880 the owners of the land excavated the 
vessel with its numerous appurtenances, archae- 
ologists hastened to see and speculate, fragments 
were carefully criticised, and finally the entire 
treasure-trove was transferred to Christiania, where 
a wooden building was erected for it. It is the 
largest and most complete ship in the world of 
so ancient date, — a. d. 900, — and had evidently 
been the private property of one of those Viking 
pirates who bore terror at his prow and conquest 
at his helm. 

" The eagle heads of all the North 

Have left their stormy strand ; 
The warriors of the world set forth 

To seek another land. 
Again their long keels sheer the wave, 

Their broad sails court the breeze ; 
Again the reckless and the brave 

Ride, lords of weltering seas." 



CHRJSTIANIA. 47 



This curious craft was seventy-six feet long, six- 
teen feet wide amidships, had a lofty prow, a sin- 
gle mast with a square sail, and was clinker-built — 
that is, the lower edge of every plank overlaps the 
next below it like slates on the roof of a house. 
It contained the remains of three small boats even 
more remarkable than the vessel itself, as the only 
known specimen of so great antiquity. They are 
of unpainted oak, very sharp at each end, with a 
place for a mast, singular rowlocks for oars, and 
are most skilfully wrought, even the bottom-boards 
being adorned with graven circles. The ship was 
originally equipped with thirty-two shields, but 
only four now remain. Their disks were formed 
t>f thin white pine and a central boss, a cross-piece 
underneath serving as handle. Each shield was 
so arranged that its outer edge touched the boss of 
the preceding one ; and as they were painted yel- 
low and black, the whole range looked like a series 
of party-colored half-moons. They were probably. 



CHRISTIANIA. 49 



from their thinness, indifferent defences, for the 
Sagas often speak of shields being cleft and ex- 
changed for new ones. Possibly they were de- 
signed more for ornament than for use. 

A very interesting object is the rudder, which is 
in perfect preservation on the starboard — originally 
the sleerboard, or steering — side, which here is on 
the ridit of the vessel. It was evidentlv a sort of 
movable blade or oar, not attached to the ship, 
but to a projecting beam of wood, and could be 
hauled on deck when the oars were used instead 
of sails. The ( )ne mast was also movable, and 
when erected was placed in a hole made in a 
beam at the bottom of the ship, and secured a 
few feet higher up by passing through another ori- 
fice in a heavy log of curious shape. There were 
no indications of seats for the rowers, who may 
have plied the oars in a standing position, in man- 
ner similar to that of Venetian gondoliers. 

Among the relics found with the ship are the 



50 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

feathers of a peacock, no doubt a souvenir of for- 
eign voyages ; a bundle of yellow cloth with red 
stripes sewed on, clearly meant for a tent ; dark- 
gray woollen fragments of clothing, a long piece 
of silk interwoven with gold, carved wooden 
plates, cups, candlesticks, gilded and silvered 
strap-buckles and buttons, a large copper cal- 
dron, a remarkable axe, and even the landing- 
plank. Who knows but this plank may have up- 
held the feet of the adventurous Norsemen who 
sought new homes among the geysers of Iceland 
before pushing over to America, or who crushed 
heather and gorse in Scotland, or even of those 
who stepped from the Golden Horn to service in 
the Imperial Guard of the Sultan's palace ! * 

The funeral of a Viking chief was a barbaric 

* I give considerable space to the description of this 
old ship, because it was really the most characteristic 
and historically interesting thing to be seen in Norway. 



CHRIS TJA NIA . 5 1 



ceremony. A slight excavation was made on the 
coast, into which his ship was lowered, the prow 
turned seaward. A sepulchral cabin was pre- 
pared in the centre, and the body, lying on a 
sledge, decked in state attire, ornaments and full 
panoply of arms, was then introduced, and the 
opening closed with layers of birch-bark ; all other 
personal possessions were laid in other parts of 
this gigantic coffin, which was packed to the top 
with moss and blue clay, which is said to be a 
peculiarly good preservative against deca}-. His 
horses and dogs were killed and placed against 
the sides, and finally earth piled over all in form *>f 
a lofty mound. This was done very near the 
shore, so that even after death the shadow of 
the sea-rover might frown upon his chosen ele- 
ment. Occasionally, however, the vessel and its 
owner were burned together to the water's edge. 
A tradition has come down concerning one of 
those dauntless warriors that when he felt the 



52 JVOJ^lVAV NIGHTS. 



hand of death upon him he ordered his ship to 
be filled with combustible materials and ignited, 
the sail set seaward, and there, alone upon his 
funeral-pyre, the spray of ocean for his chrism, 
the winds his ministers, his unconquered spirit 
fled to the Walhalla of his faith. 

Even ships "may rise on stepping-stones of 
former selves. "' Perhaps a thousand years hence 
the skeleton of one of our ocean steamers may 
survive — ^a barbaric toy, when the now-anticipated 
glories of electric motors shall have had their 
day, and some more powerful agent may offer 
summer excursions straight to the Pole itself 



CHAPTER III. 



THE G U D B R A N S D A L. 



BEFORE leaving Christiania we planned our 
chart of travel with the aid of Mr. Bennett, 
an Englishman long resident there, who is a sort 
of Cook's Agency amplified and improved. He 
rents vehicles for posting, marks out routes in ac- 
cordance with the time and taste of the inquirer, 
furnishes guide-books, has a large assortment of 
antiquities for sale, and is withal so friendly and 
obliging that he is very popular. Our time was 
limited, for we had also Sweden and Russia be- 
fore us, and an engagement at Bayreuth at the end 
of two months. 

It has been well said that two of the requisities 
for a pleasant tour are "a little too little tin^e 



54 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

and a little too much money. " The spur of ac- 
tion stimulates the brain ; the generous purse se- 
cures from care. The quantum sufficit in Scandi- 
navia is somewhat less than elsewhere on the Con- 
tinent, and is indicated in a general way in the 
guide-books. Mr. Bennett is especially service- 
able to ladies travelling without a courier, and 
they can very well dispense with one on ordinary 
routes if they will take the trouble to learn a little 
Norsk. A few lessons only are necessary for pro- 
nunciation, and Bennett's Phrase-book is more 
helpful than those books generally are, being more 
ingeniously arranged. If a guide is preferred, 
a man in Christiania named Aak may be highly 
recommended. 

Our route was to take us up the Mjosen lake, the 
largest in Norway, to Lilliehamar, thence across 
the Gudbransdal and the Romsdal valleys to 
Molde, including the Geiranger Fiord, to the west- 
ern coast ; from Molde to Trondhjem ; thence 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 55 

by Steamer to the North Cape. Much patient 
scrutiny of numerous guide-books had indicated 
this as a very satisfactory though not an exhaustive 
tour. For the latter at least one entire, diligent 
summer would be required, and even then much 
would be left out. 

A railway ride of two hours through a fertile 
country for that latitude brought us to Eidsvold, 
where we went on board the Kong Oscar, a 
dainty little steamer affording an upper deck and 
a good dinner, including the inevitable Lay or 
salmon. The simple-hearted old captain paid us 
frequent visits and expatiated on the beauties of 
the lake, which he had thoroughly learned in his 
experience of thirty years between its two princi- 
pal points. It is the largest in Norway, seventy 
miles long, and contains twenty species of fish, 
whose ancestors must have suffered terrible fright 
during the earthquake at Lisbon in 1755, when 
the waves suddenly rose twenty feet high and as 



56 JVOI?WAV NIGHTS. 

suddenly retreated. The banks are pleasing, but 
have no salient features, until at the northern end 
the hills rise in height with evident emulation of 
their neighbors in the Gudbransdal region ; for- 
ests of birch and mountain ash grow to the water's 
edge, and pine and fir reach to their summits. All 
day we saw drifting down to Eidsvold rafts of pine 
logs felled in mountain forests, where they are shot 
singly down the Lougen (a tributary of the lake), 
over boulders and cataracts, as far as Lilliehamar ; 
there they are collected and bound together for a 
new itinerary. 

We stopped for the night at Lilliehamar, a pros- 
perous but not a pretty village in spite of its pretty 
name (Little Hill) and its commanding position 
above Lake Mjosen. Like nearly all Norwegian 
villages it consists mainly of one long straggling 
street of uninviting houses, in which are half a 
dozen shops that offer in the murky windows hats, 
buttons, colored handkerchiefs, faded photographs, 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 57 

and pebbly bonbons. However, it considers it- 
self a promising town and boasts of several mills, 
a "grammar school,"' and two or three rival inns. 
We went to the ambitiously-named Victoria, which 
overlooks the lake. Its bare floors and deficiency 
of toilet requisites suggested "roughing it, "' but 
through our emphatic gestures and our few invalu- 
able Xorse words the bewildered landladv con- 
trived to understand enough of our needs to 
make us comfortable. After our excellent sup- 
per of brook trout and wheat pancakes, or 
" y)ankagen,"' which are a specialty of Norway, 
the captain of tlie Koiig Oscar walked up from 
his boat to escort us to a neighboring waterfall 
which for the honor of his country he was fain to 
exhibit. A pleasant saunter through fragrant 
woods and wild-flowers led to a point where the 
turbulent little river Messna dashes and dances X 
over a heap of boulders in a very spirited manner. 
" Helvedeshol, " or "Caldron of Hell,"' seemed a 



58 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

needlessly severe name for a rush of water that 
was merely in high (not evil) spirits. 

We declined an invitation to watch departing 
day with other guests on the terrace at eleven 
o'clock, and began to wonder whether anybody 
ever went to bed o' summer nights in Norway. 
Our first sweet sleep had scarcely begun when 
cocks and hens announced the sun again, and re- 
minded us that we had appointed an early hour for 
our first experiment in the national vehicles, cariole, 
stolkjserre, and trille. The kariol, or cariole, of 
Norway, unlike our carryall which its name sug- 
gests, is a unique vehicle — a species of gig with two 
wheels, for one person only. It is light and sim- 
ple in construction ; the long, elastic shafts are 
attached to the axle-tree ; the seat, placed well for- 
ward, rests by cross-pieces upon the shafts. The 
legs of the rider must be nearly horizontal and 
rest on stirrup-shaped irons, so that he is protected 
from all inconvenience and danger in descending 



6o NORWAY NIGHTS. 

Steep hills or in case of the horse falling — a rare 
occurrence, as the animals are very sure-footed. 
Across the ends of the shafts, behind the seat, there 
is a board to hold a small trunk, and on that sits 
the boy who takes the horse back to his post-sta- 
tion. The harness has no traces, and the shafts 
are attached to a substitute for a collar by some 
simple arrangement, so that the little cream-col- 
ored ponies look as free as the coursers of Apollo, 
but much less frantic, for ladies and children can 
generally drive them with safety ; pretty creatures 
with long dark manes, and tails that often reach 
to the hoof. It is pleasant to see how kindly they 
are treated : a whip is almost an unknown ap- 
pendage ; encouraging words speed them forward, 
and they are stopped, not by pulling the reins, but 
by a peculiar prolonged Bur-r-i- ! 

Like everything else in Norway they move at 
rather moderate pace, except down hill, when they 
fly like a bicycle and gain impetus for the ascent 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 6 1 

beyond. It is a significant fact that only foreign- 
ers ever abuse them by hard driving, but it appears 
that our high civihzation must " get through" at 
any cost. Why even That should desire to hurry 
through picturesque Norway is past comprehen- 
sion. It is hard upon the poor farmers, who are 
obliged by the government to furnish horses to 
travellers in lieu of certain taxes and at fixed and 
rather low prices, and particularly disadvantageous 
on some of the by-roads, or "slow stations" as 
they are called, when in the harvest season the 
horses are urgently needed in the fields. Along 
the principal arteries of travel the farmers club 
together and establish regular "fast," or fixed, 
stations, where they always keep in reserve a suffi- 
cient number. 

Another vehicle, for two or three persons with 
a driver, is the trille, which cannot be praised 
for its "ample space and verge enough," but 
otherwise is comfortable — especially if one is for- 



62 jyO/?WAV NIGHTS. 

tunate, as we were, to obtain a good one for our 
journey through the Gudbransdal. 

We started upon our novel journey from 
LiUiehamar early in the morning, — early by the 
clock, very late by the sun, — and a delightfully 
exciting departure it was. The landlord and land- 
lady, maids, hostlers, and post-boys assisted with 
the grave deliberation of the nation, and corded on 
our portmanteaus, bags, and bundles, previously 
subjected in Christiania to as stringent limitation 
as comfort would permit, and we were launched, 
a fearless, happy trio, upon our own resources and 
our diamond edition of Norse words, which en- 
larged itself a little day by day. The cariole was 
pronounced delightful ; the two in the trille found 
it satisfactory : and, to vary our experience, we 
sometimes exchanged places in the two vehicles. 

We entered at once the narrow valley of the 

Gudbransdal, which extends one hundred and 

X fifty miles ; and as far as Dombaas, at the end of 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 63 

our second day, the valley is rather level. The 
mountains on either side are nearly uniform, the 
lower slopes cultivated, the heights covered with 
pine forests. The Lougen or Laugen, which j y 
merely signifies The River, runs through the val- 
ley ; sometimes it pauses in smooth swirls which 
broaden to a lake, but oftener it forces its milky- 
blue waters into narrow channels and foams im- 
petuously over stones and boulders, gathers trib- 
ute from countless waterfalls in trickling sprays or 
dashing torrents, and sweeps down its generous 
flood hundreds of huge trees felled from the for- 
ests. 

At Fossegarden, seven miles from Lilliehamar, is 
the cataract called Hunerfos {/os means waierfall) 
that arrests the swim of the abundant lake trout, 
which consequently are here caught in large num- 
bers. We sometimes pass huge cairns of stones 
which indicate the farmers' trouble in preparing 
their land ; we obtain on some eminence an oc- 



64 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

casional glimpse of the snow-capped Rondane 
Mountains, seven thousand feet high and tenanted 
by reindeer and foxes ; and all the way we see 
patches of snow lingering in crevices, for the I2th 
of June and the verdure around appeal to them 
in vain : many of them will hide in the peaks and 
under ledges of rock all through the summer. 

The air is sweet and gracious ; the fields are 
decked with pink roses, violets, aconite, yellow 
buttercups, and other spontaneous flowers. The 
flora of Norway is said to be very abundant for so 
northern a latitude. Sometimes a linnet in a bush 
confesses the joy of his heart, and 

"Sings each song thrice over, 
Lest you should think 
He never can recapture 
The first, fine, careless rapture." 

Hares flit along the brushwood, harassed by no- 
body ; pied crows, perched on barns or fences, 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 65 

speculate on our movements ; and now and then a 
magpie with audacious eye, a bird superstitiously 
venerated in Norway, tries to intercept our news. 
Peasants with red woollen caps, tassel hanging 
from the peak, and odd paniers on their backs, 
salute us with "Godmorgen. " Sunburned chil- 
dren, tidily dressed, lift their clear blue eyes, but 
never ask for alms. Triangular wooden snow- 
ploughs now and then are drawn up from the 
wayside, suggestive of past and future winter, 
which in all this summer sheen seems an unsea- 
sonable impossibility. 

Throughout our six days of posting we had 
nothing to say but praise^ — of men, women, and 
accommodations ; for this is one of the very best 
posting routes in the countr}'. It is easy enough 
to find discomforts if one wanders away from the 
well-beaten tracks. The stations, which are all 
farm-houses and bear the names of their owners, 
are from seven to ten miles apart. As we drive 



66 JVO/^WAV NIGHTS. 

into the enclosure we address the first person we 
see with ' ' Godmorgen ; veer saa god, Heste" 
("Good-morning; if you please, horses"). No 
one properly appreciative of Norwegian civility 
would think of omitting '' Veer saa god. " Travel- 
y^ lers who call out peremptorily, " Heste, strap/" 

("Horses, quick!") are in disfavor among these 
quietly courteous people, who from the highest 
to the lowest never enter a shop or meet each 
other without raising their hats ; who invariably 
thank a host or hostess after a repast in the 
words "■ Tak for Maden' ("Thanks for the 
food"), and receive in reply a hearty " Velbekom- 
men" ("May it do you good'"), and who even 
express retrospective gratitude by the frequent 
phrase " Takfor sidsf' ("Thanks for the last time 
we met") ! When a vehicle overtakes another 
on a country road, the driver who desires to pass 
the other invariably asks permission, and apolo- 
gizes for so doing. 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 67 

While the farmer or his boys are changing 
horses at the stations and a new Skvds-gut, or post- 
boy, takes his place on each vehicle, we enter the 
sitting-room, a pleasant-mannered woman shows us 
ihe Dag-bog, or visitors' day-book, where we inscribe 
our names in obedience to required custom, also 
stating our destination and the number of horses 
we require. If there are just causes for complaint, 
travellers are requested to enter them ; but these 
are very rare, and tributes to the comforts afforded 
are numerous. In fact, the farmers themselves are 
much more likely to be displeased with the hard 
driving of their horses, and are permitted by act 
of Parliament, if the animals are injured, to de- 
mand an indemnity, on testimony of the post-boy, 
two other men being called in to confirm the 
claim of injury. 

Throughout this valley, which is the most com- 
fortable part of Norway for posting, the farm- 
houses are perfectly clean, the sitting-rooms cheer- 



68 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

fill with pots of growing flowers ; heirlooms of 
carved or painted furniture are often seen ; views 
of the country and numerous family photographs 
deck the walls — the latter, it must be said, some- 
times ludicrously solemn. It is not a handsome 
race, this honest, kindly race of Norway, and 
the sun-artist has not learned 
how to idealize by ''touching 
up" their long, serious faces 
and irregular features. Al- 
ways we find a few books on 
shelves : like the Icelanders, 
the people are great readers 
Norwegian PEASANT. ^j^j.^^gj^ ^j^^ protracted win-. 

ters. Education is compulsory, and English is 
taught in the higher schools. The only university 
is in Christiania, and the higher classes often send 
their boys to England to be educated, and the 
girls to Paris or Germany for accomplishments. 
We found the beds comfortable as to linen and 




THE GUDBRANSDAL. 69 

eider-down pillows and duvets for cool nights ; 
but they are decidedly Procrustean for long-limbed 
sleepers. 

The food, served on coarse white table-linen wo- 
ven by hand-looms in the family, is wholesome and 
palatable. Beef and mutton are scarcely known ; 
but fish, generally trout fresh from the river, veal, 
chickens, game, ptarmigan and wood-grouse, dried 
reindeer-tongues, — delicate and savory, — good 
coffee, milk, eggs, and certain excellent sweets 
form a menu that ought to satisfy any modern 
Lucullus. Of course one never finds them all at a 
single repast, fish and one kind of meat or bird 
being the rule. The bread is of several sorts — the 
coarse family rye bread, white bread for effeminate 
foreigners, often imported English biscuits, and in- 
variably the national Fladbrod, a round, very thin 
and crisp cake about the size of a large dinner- 
plate, stamped with tracery, and generally made 
of oat or rye meal. Great quantities are prepared / 




70 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

at a time and stowed away in drawers and chests. 
Their tea is not the beverage that cheers, and those 
who cannot be happy without tea would better take 
their own supply. Pancakes form the usual sweet 
dish, and are so delicate that we soon learned to 
ask for them at every substantial meal. They are 
generally accompanied by stewed currants or rasp- 
berries and whipped cream. The butter is taste- 
ess and untempting, and there are no vegetables 
except potatoes and a species of sorrel. Necessa- 
rily the quality of the cooking varies ; we came 
across stations where the cordon bleu was decidedly 
a cordon vert. The prices are very low : never 
more than forty cents, American currency, for din- 
ner or supper ; twenty cents for morning coffee, 
eggs, and bread. We were usually served by the 
farmer's wife or daughter, who would speed us at 
parting with a kindly " Farvel /' or sometimes by 
a Pige, or young woman from a neighboring 
farm, — for there are no servants in the convention- 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 7 I 

al sense — all are on a level among these country 
folk. Of course we added the usual douceur to 
our moderate bill ; but we heard afterwards that 
the independent Norwegians prefer a trifling gift 
in other shape, a gay-colored ribbon or a bright 
handkerchief, accompanied by a pleasant word — 
if one happens to know the word ! They always 
acknowledge a gift of any kind by a shake of the 
hand — a custom which, in the case of a cariole- 
boy for instance, one would prefer '' to honor in the 
breach," for the hand of that personage, though, 
like "the hand of Douglas, " unquestionably "his 
own,"' is not always immaculate. By a conver- 
sion of genders the cariole-boy is sometimes a girl. 
A little creature not more than nine years old 
was in two instances deputed to sit behind on the 
box and drive back the horse. No doubt it was 
safe ; for the roads are good at this season, and the 
animals are models of integrity. 

After Fossegarden, noticeable for its fine cata- C^^^V 



72 JVOJ^JVAV NIGHTS, 

ract, the first station of interest was Kirkestuen, 
which boasts of a quaint little church containing 
some stiff Byzantine-like painted figures of Christ 
with angels, an almost solitary instance of such 
adornment in Norway. While we waited at the 
station to rest, a jolly old party, with great 
"breadth of beam" and a round face wreathed in 
smiles, stood still to be sketched, much to the de- 
light of his family. I have no doubt he was the 
landlord ; and, in compliment to the Byzantine 
angels, he took an attitude as nearly as possible 
like theirs, rigid, ascetic, with pendent arms and 
monumental legs, as ludicrous a combination as 
could be imagined. 

At the unpronounceably-named station of 
Skjaesggestad the dark red spire of another antique 
church is the only prominent object. 

We passed the first night at the Listad farm, 
and astonished the hostess by asking for a separate 
room for each of the party. Such lack of socia- 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 73 



bility she could not comprehend ; but as she had 
no other guests, our persuasions prevailed, and 
we were soon ensconced in three enormous rooms, 
with a balcony looking upon sweet green fields 
framed in forest-covered hills. The air was de- 
licious ; and supper, that important item to trav- 
ellers, made savory by the sauce of good appetite, 
was served in a room decorated with pots of ivy 
which stood in corners whence the vines were 
trained over the walls quite to the ceiling. Sleep 
seemed an impertinence in that long opalescent 
twilight, followed, not by night, but by the sun ; 
and until he rose gayly at two o'clock the scene 
was more fitting for Romeo and Juliet than was 
that pent-up balcony overhanging the noisome 
street in Verona. Just then the fair Capulet of 
our party found herself quite happy without a 
Montague, but 

" When enchantments afterwards befell " — 



74 NO/^]VAV NIGHTS. 

However, let us avoid personalities and resume 
our carioles ! 

The second day offered more variety than the 
first. Again the Laugen hurries its course, and 
forms farther on two cataracts which bound over 
rocks and sprinkle the fern-clad cliffs. Near 
Storklevestad is a house partly built of timbers 
which formed the one in which was born St. Olaf, 
one of the fierce evangelist - kings of the tenth 
century, whose title to saintship rests upon his de- 
struction of the temples of Odin and Thor, and 
his propagation of the religion of peace by battle- 
axe and sword until his atrocities roused the whole 
country against him. 

" Norway never yet had seen 
One so beautiful of mien, 

One so royal in attire 
When in arms completely furnished. 
Harness gold-inlaid and burnished, 
Mantle like a fiame of fire. 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 75 



' I command 
This land to be a Christian land ; 
And if you ask me to restore 
Your sacrifices, stained with gore. 
Then will I offer human sacrifices — 
Not slaves and peasants shall they be, 
But men of note and high degree.' " 

On and on runs the exhilarating river until it 
pauses to sleep in a small lake at Bredevaugen, )< 
but wakens again when reinforced by two torrents 
which are utilized to turn several saw-mills. These 
ordinarily uncouth structures do not mar the 
scenery in Norway, because the roofs are covered 
with green turf, and the pine logs lying about are 
harmonious with gray and yellow lichens. 

We now pass a very steep hill called Kringelen, 
which was the scene in 1 8 1 2 of the massacre of a 
number of Scotch troops under Colonel Sinclair, 
who had been despatched to assist Sweden in one 



X 



76 JVO/?lVAV NIGHTS. 

of the numerous feuds between that country and 
its turbulent neighbor, Norway. In rashly at- 
tempting to pass through this valley to Sweden 
they were fatally surprised by about three hundred 
peasants, who hurled upon them from this hill an 
immense avalanche of rocks, stones, and roots of 
trees carefully collected for the purpose. A small 
monument and a tablet in the rock commemorate 
the disaster. 

The road now rises gradually ; the valley be- 
comes dreary and desolate ; there are no farm- 
houses for several miles through a desert of stones, 
sand, and debi-is from the mountains, whose only 
vegetation is stunted pines. The few laborers' 
cabins are roofed with birch-bark, covered with 
turf which is often prinked with bright flowers 
and occasionally affords footing for a small birch- 
tree. A little farther on we reach the Rusten 
Pass, a magnificent gorge wooded thickly with 
firs and birches. The mountains nearly ap- 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 77 

proach each other, the river forces its way 
through precipitous rocks of gneiss, the air is filled 
with spray of innumerable waterfalls from trick- 
ling threads to impetuous torrents, and the whole 
scene is wild and grand in the extreme. At the 
finest point of view we cross the ravine by a pic- 
turesque wooden bridge, about a hundred and fifty 
feet above the foaming waters. We pass a pretty 
church, in form of a Greek cross, entirely covered 
with slabs of dark slate, and then reach Toftmoen, 
which deserves mention as the abode of a de- 
scendant of Harald Haarfager (Harold of the 
Fair Hair), who in 872 conquered and fused into 
one the numerous small earldoms of Norway. 
He had offered his warlike heart to a haughty 
beauty named Gyda, who replied that she would 
never marry the chief of a few insignificant prov- 
inces ; only the throne of an absolute sovereign 
would tempt her. To hear was to obey. The im- 
petuous wooer registered a vow to Odin and all 



78 NO J^ WAV NIGHTS. 

the other gods that he would neither comb nor 
cut his hair until he had fairly won his suit, which 
he did at the decisive battle of Halfursfiord. The 
ambitious lady kept her promise, but history does 
not report whether she found herself happy in 
sharing her matrimonial honors with eight other 
wives, according to the custom of the period. 
Harald Haarfager's crown was by no means a 
comfortable ornament, for the dissatisfied prov- 
inces gave him endless trouble by their internal 
feuds ; but the Viking chiefs emigrated in large 
numbers, visited the entire sea-coast of Europe, 
made permanent homes in Scotland, Ireland, 
and Iceland, and even drifted to the shores of 
America. It was in the reign of this ancestor of 
Herr Toftmoen that the Viking ship previously 
mentioned was buried at Godstad. The lonely 
farm-house where we paused gives no external in- 
dication of royal lineage ; but the owner is consid- 
ered passing rich, and keeps four hundred horses, 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 79 

two hundred sheep, and fifty goats in his stables 
all the winter. 

When King Carl. XIII. stopped at this station V 
to dine in i860, on his way to Trondhjem to 
be crowned, the uncle of the present landlord sent 
word to his Majesty that it was unnecessary to 
unpack his travelling-case of silver, as there was 
quite enough in the house for the entire suite of 
forty persons ; and when the dinner was served, 
this descendant of the Haarfager asserted his royal 
rank by dining also at the side of the king. The 
family pride runs in the blood still, though they 
are simple folk enough. One of them showed us 
some of their antique relics, which are used even 
now on proper occasions — a high silver wedding- 
crown, decked with colored stones but not jewels, 
which had rested on many a fair head in genera- 
tions long past ; silver chains, brooches, rings, and 
a girdle worn on the same occasions, some of 
which we wickedly coveted, as curios. 



8o NO J? WAV NIGHTS. 

One of the sitting-rooms in this ancient house 
was dazzUng to behold : a bright blue dado 
half-way up, and the remainder, together with the 
rafters, bright pale-yellow ! The pantries and 
closets were exhibited with housewifely pride, as 
well as an enormous key with most complicated 
wards which hung in the entrance-hall, souvenir 
of a past habitation. The boys of ten and twelve 
years who drove us to the next station were sons 
and heirs to this primitive wealth — frank, good- 
humored little chaps who amused themselves 
and us by repeating a few English words which 
seemed to them intensely funny. Their laughter 
was contagious, and we arrived in merry mood at 
1 1 o'clock at Dombaas, our station for the night. 

Eleven o'clock — only the edge of the evening 
in these high twilight-latitudes ! We met two 
gentlemen just sallying out for a walk ; cocks 
and hens were picking up vesper crumbs, and 
the house-dogs on hospitable qui vive like the 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 8 1 



master and the maids. And yet by four or five 
the next morning all the household would be 
astir. We often asked, "Do you never sleep in 
summer.?" "O, yes, but we sleep in winter," — 
implying that the brief, beautiful summer was for 
siesta merely. 

Any artificial light is of course out of the 
question, and we rarely even saw a candle in 
the bedrooms. As the windows have usually 
only white muslin shades, the full blaze of the 
sun, two or three hours after going to bed, in a 
room where his evening reflections still lingered, 
was more poetic than pleasing, and we were often 
compelled to darken the windows with shawls 
and rugs. 

We had ascended from Toftmoen over great 
stony barren plains to the plateau, two thousand 
feet above the sea, on which stands the farm-house 
of Herr Dombaas, externally bare and without 
ornament of trees, but within doors the most at- 



82 NORV/AY NIGHTS. 

tractive of all the Norway stations. The intelli- 
gent and obliging landlord greeted us at the door 
in excellent English, which was a joy to our ears 
after two days of unmitigated Norsk. The en- 
trance-hall was hung with white bear-skins and 
the pretty white fox-skins, the expressive heads 
undetached ; while above stretched the arms of 
fine branching antlers. The sitting-room had 
a very homelike aspect, with readable books and 
comfortable sofas. The air was pure and brac- 
ing, and we were very glad to repose in this 
pleasant place for two nights. Herr Dombaas 
owns one of the best Scsters, or mountain 
dairies, in Norway. In these saeters one may 
see life reduced to its primitive elements. They 
are rude log-cabins with the usual tiny roof, on 
mountain plateaux, sometimes three thousand feet 
high, to which in summer the farmers send two 
or three of their daughters with the cows and 
goats. The large room serves as sitting-room, 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 83 

bedroom, and kitchen. Those remaining form 
the dairy — all very clean, and the floors strewn, as 
they are in some parts of the farm-houses, with 
sweet-scented fir-branches. A writer in the Lon- 
don Graphic says: "There are two beds, and a 
belated traveller is always welcome to one of them ; 
for while purer-minded maidens do not exist than 
these mountain-lassies, there is no false modesty 
about them, nor have we ever heard of their hos- 
pitality being abused. No sooner does a traveller 
set foot inside of the door than one of them ap- 
pears with a huge bowl of milk, of which it would 
be the greatest possible rudeness to refuse to par- 
take. Of tips they are delightfully ignorant, but 
they thoroughly appreciate the gift of a bright- 
colored handkerchief or of a packet of English 
needles. " 

But while the life on these lonely mountains de- 
velops great simplicity and integrity of character, 
it is not surprising that traditions of the gnomes 



84 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



who once mixed their weird loves and hates with 
the impulses of humanity should still cast shadows 
of superstition upon these primitive abodes ; and 
we must be lenient to the fear of the saeter-maid, 
who when her swain comes up for his Sunday 
visit hopes he will not be ensnared on the way by 
the Huldr, a tall fair woman in yellow bodice and 
blue skirt, with golden hair flowing over her 
shoulders, who sits on a rock, sewing or knitting, 
for the malign purpose of stealing men's hearts 
from their lawful owners. Fortunately, the inces- 
sant toil of the dairy leaves little time for fancies ; 
the milk of sheep, goats, and cows requires much 
persuasion before it consents to assume its various 
names. The ' ' gamle Ost, " or old cheese, as 
one quahty becomes in course of time, might well 
be omitted from the catalogue according to An- 
glo-Saxon ideas, for it salutes the olfactories in the 
same overpowering way as the notorious Lim- 
burger, and must be brought to the table in a 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 85 



covered glass dish, which is as carefully opened as 
a bottle with a live reptile in. 

The necessity for rest and letter-writing de- 
prived us one day of a promised excursion on the 
Dovre Fjeld, the most famous of the mountain- 
ranges, and the one which separates Southern 
from Northern Norway. There are no well-de- 
fined chains as in Switzerland, and therefore no 
"passes," in the Swiss sense, but vast elevated pla- 
teaux, from which rise mountain-peaks some- 
times to the height of eight thousand feet, and 
occasionally too precipitous for the snow to lie 
upon them. Above the range of the forests these 
plateaux are covered with stones and boulders dis- 
integrated by frost. Of the Dovre Fjeld, Baedeker 
says : "A great part of the route traverses lofty, 
bleak, and treeless solitudes, rock-strewn tracts, 
swamps, gloomy lakes, and blackened masses of 
snow. The solemn grandeur of the scene, how- 
ever, has a peculiar weird attraction of its own, 



S6 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



and the pure air is remarkably healthful and ex- 
hilarating." There is compensation even in these 
desolate wastes to sportsmen, geologists, and bot- 
anists. Another writer speaks of the abundance 
and variety of mosses and lichens clothing the 
rocks with rich colors, and adds that after one 
passes the crest of the Fjeld and descends to the 
station of Kongsvold one finds it filled with Scan- 
dinavian botanists, who are attracted by the great 
variety of Alpine flora. He says : " It is comical 
to see detachments of professors and students 
sallying forth in the early morning with their gayly- 
colored tin cases slung around them. In the 
afternoon they return laden with floral treasures 
which they spread before the house on masses of 
blotting-paper, kept from flying away by large 
stones. Many, nay, most of these good people 
can speak a little English, and when once the 
natural reserve or shyness so characteristic of the 
Norwegian is broken through, pleasanter or more 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 87 

entertaining companions could scarcely be found, ' 
We would gladly have looked upon the stern 
heights which frown over the lovely valley we 
had just passed, for everything in nature responds 
10 some experience or some imagination of 
many-sided humanity ; but as we had permitted 
ourselves the liberty of choice only, not of com- 
bination, this excursion was projected into some 
shadowy by-and-by, and we turned our horses' 
heads towards the more than compensating valley 
of the Romsdal. 

By the calendar that morning it was the 15th of 
June : by the wind that blew down from the 
snows of the Dovre Fjeld it was the 15th of De- 
cember ; and the numerous warm wraps packed 
for use in the Arctic Circle were all put in requisi- 
tion. In fact, we never again found them so es- 
sential. But as we gradually descended,, the cold 
winds remained above, the mercury rose to its sea- 
sonable altitude, and the air was most exhilarating. 



88 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

One must be prepared in Norway even more than 
in Switzerland for heat in the valleys and winter 
cold on the heights ; but our experience found the 
temperature usually very equable. The day's drive 
was delightful, but not especially picturesque ; the 
Romsdal was still beyond sight, but we learned 
that for fishermen and huntsmen this region is a 
paradise. All the way from Lilliehamar the guide- 
books indicate detours for these healthful amuse- 
ments and for mountain excursions. We had left 
the Lougen several miles behind, and as we neared 
Stueflatten, our station for the night, the road 
skirts the Rauma, which just presents itself in a 
narrow, precipitous ravine through which it tum- 
bles in roaring haste. The solitary farm-house 
stands at the head of the gorge, and enjoys oppor- 
tunities to ''muse o'er flood and fell" that must 
be maddening when enforced the year round. It 
may have been this which had petrified the pretty 
girl who served our supper into a statue of sad 



90 JVOJ^lVAV NIGHTS. 

silence ; not a muscle of her face moved in re- 
sponse to our admiration of the pale-yellow carna- 
tions in the window, or of the perfection of the 
"pankagen." I peeped into the quaint kitchen 
and asked permission to sketch the characteristic 
chimney. The whole household inspected as the 
work went on, and suggested snndry additions 
behind the foreground and beyond the linear 
perspective which if followed out would have 
compelled me to tear down a wall and make the 
drawing from the outside. 

After the road leaves Stueflatten it descends by 
a series of rapid zigzags, and within a distance of 
seven miles there is a marvellous succession of 
beautiful waterfalls, some of them tumbling be- 
tween perpendicular walls of basalt rocks until 
they culminate in the grand Slettefos. Here we 
alighted and crossed the river over a bridge of 
pine-logs to a ledge below the overhanging rocks, 
where the roar is loudly reverberated. "Flood 



THE GUDBRANSDAL. 9 1 



upon flood hurries on, never ending,'" of waters 
lashed into foam between black ledges from w^hich 
fronds of fern and slender trees sway and quiver 
in the sweep of the cataract. As we stood there, a 
tiny hand holding a bunch of wild-flowers was 
suddenly held before us — only a hand and nothing 
more, till we turned and saw an elfin creature not 
more than six years old, w^ho had scrambled down 
from a grassy knoll among the trees. Imagine a 
life bounded by the cabin above and the torrent 
below! 

But we must pursue our road. Again and 
again, fringes of silvery threads all adown the 
stately hills! The rushing river sometimes pauses 
to take breath, sometimes concentrates its foam- 
ing w^aters for mad leaps over stones and bould- 
ers ; the mountains on either side approach, again 
thev recede, once more the\- narrow the path, as 
if petrified in some rhythmic measure, and here 
at last we are in the vallev of 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE ROMSDAL. 



A 



LAS ! already bankrupt in adjectives, my 
nouns and verbs tattered and torn with con- 
stant use, and the ' ' courteous reader" yawning over 
the debris, I am sorely tempted to treat this new 
claimant in the happy manner of ' ' The Snakes of 
')>< Jreland '"' — There is no Romsdal valley in Norway ! 
Yet I do indeed remember a panoramic dream of 
lofty pinnacles and serrated crags, four thousand 
to seven thousand feet high, fitly called the 
Witches' Peaks, baptized by waterfalls galore, 
foaming cataracts, and veils of finest spray which 
sparkle through dark pines and firs till they meet 
the river rushing through the curves of its rocky 
bed, mountains on either side closing the path at 
intervals as in a cul-de-sac ; and at last the Roms- 



THE ROMSDAL. 93 



dalshorn, with sharply shattered summit, overtops 
and sentinels them all at the end of the valley. 
Then the mountains recede on either side ; a 
broad green meadow flecked with purple violets 
sweeps towards the Romsdal fiord, and the Rauina, 
now transformed into the most peaceful of streams, 
glides towards the same goal. 

At one point in this plain stands a large white 
house, formerly a hotel, but now the summer resi- 
dence of an English gentleman. We afterwards 
met on a steamer several of his relatives who were 
invited there to pass the summer, making alto- 
gether a party of fourteen enviable people. 

The road westward from this point runs through 
a charming park-like expanse supposed to be the 
covered and clothed remains of an old glacier mo- 
raine. The Romsdal fiord opens before us ; the 
quaint village of Verblungnaes nestles upon it 
under the brow of a mountain. We preferred the 
station of Naes, as it commands a better view of 



94 NO J^ WAV NIGHTS. 

the Romsdal range, and has the advantage of a 
new hotel in freer air. At ten o'clock at night we 
walked out to gather lilies of the valley, which 
grew in profusion thereabouts. The TroUtinderne, 
or "Witches' Peaks," uplifted fingers of fire to- 
wards the blue serene ; the Romsdalshorn, and yet 
loftier crests of the Vengetinder, glowed in crim- 
son with deep purple shadows ; and the plaintive 
iteration of the cuckoo made the best of his lim- 
ited minor thirds — a bird mcoDipris, who is al- 
ways moaning that the ideals of his heart are de- 
nied the expression of the gifted tenors and so- 
pranos whose music 

" Bubbles, ripples up the dome 
In sprays of silvery trilling ; 
Like endless fountain's lyric foam, 
Still falling, still refilling." 

The next day two of us drove back over a ^art 
of the Romsdal, to renew and deepen its impres- 



THE ROMSDAL. 95 



sion. We walked in search of the finest points ; 
we gazed, analyzed, compared, and then decided 
that we could fiot decide. Artists come there with 
canvas and colors, but the rich embarrassm..nt 
mocks their selection. 

The next morning, with Norwegian leisureliness, 
at seven o'clock we started on the steamer for Vest- 
naes, whence we were to post to Soholt. The fiord 
at first entrance looked like an inland lake, and 
the mountains around and behind gleamed in the 
morning sun with distinct individuality of form. 
The steamers on all these fiords not only cross 
and recross to opposite sides, but they also run 
into all the little tributaries where a hamlet or 
post-station exists, thus traversing a great deal of 
space and aff"ording a good opportunity to scan 
the people. One sees many pretty hamlets nearly 
always under watch and ward of a white church 
on the hillside, and a cascade or two of more or 
less pretension. The steamer landed us at a 



96 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



grassy slope whence a shaded path led to the post- 
station, and our impedimenta followed after a 
long interval, under conduct of the only positively 
stupid boy we encountered in the journey. 

At once we became the cynosure of a hundred 
eyes much enlarged for the occasion, belonging to 
a troop of Sunday-dressed boys and girls who were 
to be confirmed, though it was not Sunday, in the 
church near by. They crowded round us while 
we engaged vehicles for Soholt, the next station, 
but preserved a civil immobility of feature when 
our Norsk gave out disgracefully in certain unex- 
pected exigencies. We obtained a cariole, but no 
trille was to be seen among the dozen dilapidated, 
unpainted, and extraordinary carts that were scat- 
tered about the premises ; for in Norway there are 
no sheds for vehicles outside of cities. So we 
were fain to put up with the novelty of a Stoelk- 
jcBrre, a heavy springless cart seating two persons 
and a post-boy behind them. There was doubt 




Church in Gldbraxsdal. 



98 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

about our obtaining even that, until there came 
to ■ the rescue the sister of the station-master, a 
very conscious and smihng beauty, who must 
have been the belle of the neighborhood, for she 
was not only pretty, but well endowed in other 
ways. She had learned ' ' a few English " at 
.school in Molde, and not a few exotic graces. 
Like the descendants of Harald Haarfager, the 
family are pecuniarily independent and not over- 
pleased to be subsidized by the government to en- 
tertain strangers. It is to be feared that at some 
future time all this part of Norway may be ruined 
by railways — and then, farewell forever to its 
charm of simplicity and freshness. Already evil 
spirits are suggesting one from Lilliehamar to the 
western coast through the Gudbransdal and 
Romsdal valleys ; and the only salvation from such 
a calamity lies in the fact that the foreign travel 
is limited to about three months of the year, and 
the commercial gain would be too trifling to com- 



THE ROMSDAL. 99 

pensate the expense. Those who desire to see 
Norway before the army of summer locusts have 
devoured every green leaf of its honest forest-life 
would better go there as soon as may be, leaving 
behind all superfluity of dress and impatience of 
speech and manner. In truth, no one ought to 
visit it who does not worship nature more than 
fashion ; those who care only to roll from a Pull- 
man car into a liveried hotel, to run through pic- 
ture-galleries and buy diamonds, 

'■ to lord it o'er their fellow-men 
With most prevailing tinsel " — 

\vill find no other welcome than 

" Procu/, procjil , profani !"' 

Our first trial of the springless stoelkjaerre was 
happily our last. It was not a flowery bed of 
ease ; the horse crept when the road was level, 
but dashed up hill and down hill with a \ igor that 



lOO JVOJ^tVAV NIGHTS. 

left no doubt either of his own good intentions or 
of the consequences to ourselves. The happy in- 
dividual in the cariole was not disturbed, but the 
tenants of the stoelkjaerre have never solved the 
problem which was the largest factor in that drive, 
the misery or the mirth. 

Very shortly after our first starting we passed 
a church with sloping, red-tiled roof where the 
boys and girls we encountered at the station were 
now receiving the rite of confirmation. This cere- 
money is compulsory and marks an important era 
in life, for no one can be married or obtain a 
situation in a factory or office before passing 
through it. The newspapers advertise for a "con- 
firmed young man as clerk,"' or "a confirmed 
young woman as seamstress," etc. This is not 
a purely ecclesiastical observance as would be sup- 
posed, for it is preceded by at least six weeks' ear- 
nest instruction by the parish clergyman and his 
assistant, not only in theology but in many useful 



THE ROMSDAL. lOI 



practical branches : examinations follow which 
must be satisfactory, or the pupil is remanded for 
another course. Confirmation is therefore a testi- 
monial of a certain degree of knowledge and of 
good character. Both boys and girls are then 
supposed to be prepared for the duties of life. 
The religion is Lutheran, from which there is no 
dissent ; it is partly under government control, at 
least so far as church property is concerned, for 
bishops and priests are maintained by funded rev- 
enues, and their widows and children provided for 
by a special appropriation. It is said that the 
Norwegians have great reverence and affection for 
their church, and that the clergy are remarkably 
intelligent and influential men. Some of them 
are members of Parliament, but not ex officio— 
merely as laymen. 

Our road for several miles lay through smooth 
green plains, bright with wild-flowers, through 
which ran a little arm of the fiord that reflected 



I02 NOJ^W.-lV NIGHTS. 

the log-cabins of the owners of the land ; then a 
gay little torrent marked the way to a narrow val- 
ley, which gradually ascended to bare and treeless 
mountains. We changed horses at the only really 
y poor station we had seen, Ellengsgaard, a mere 

peasant's dwelling, dirty and displeasing. Hap- 
pily we could dispense with food, and gladly 
pushed onward through a very dreary region for 
three hours, until we made an abrupt descent into 
a sheltered valley where smiling vegetation, pleas- 
ant farms, and the blue Stor fiord indicated our 
arrival at Soholt, a cluster, or rather a street, of 
white and red houses that follows the shore and 
offers all essential comforts to tourists in the new 
and clean Alexandra hotel. Supper and sleep 
were very welcome that night after the early morn- 
ing boat, the jolting stoelkjgerre and the too-gen- 
erous warmth of the sun. The landlord of the 
hostelry, named Ramussen, talks English fluently, 
for he w^as a laborer six or seven years on an Illi- 



THE ROMSDAL. 1 03 



nois farm, returned with his savings to " Gamle 
Norge," built his inn, and then " they were mar- 
ried;" and we hope they will ''live happilv ever 
after," for he is a good-hearted, honest son of the 
soil who deserves to prosper. \\^e were sympa- 
thetic with his pride in his new belongings, in his 
store of household linen, and the new mattresses ; 
and when he asked us whether it was better to 
leave the unpainted pine walls of some of the 
chambers as they were or to paper them, we of 
course voted against the paper. 

The steamer, fettered by no horological laws, 
was nearly two hours late the next morning. 
After preliminary study of guide-books, gathering 
of wild-flowers, and much discursive chat, we were 
fain to betake ourselves to the one shop of the vil- 
lage to lay in a small stock of the national pipes 
made of some dark polished wood, and soon 
found ourselves the target of many feminine eyes, 
which took in all the details of our dresses, and. 



I04 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

aided by fingers, even remarked with signal ap- 
proval the confidential embroideries beneath. 
At last the tardy steamer, with little to do and a 
great deal of time to do it in, pufi"ed around the 
promontory, and we were soon ensconced for the 
next ten hours in a favorable position for studying 
the fiord and its confluents. The views were very 
varied, of green meadows with background of 
mountains traversed by the inevitable waterfalls, 
uplying farms, tiny red hamlets on the shore, 
quaint-looking people, and fishermen in quiet 
nooks, with their log-houses perched on ledges of 
the cliffs. We crossed and recrossed continually, 
taking on and putting off" cargo, and parties of 
peasants who were a study in manners and dress. 
There are no very distinctive costumes here as in 
some other parts of Norway ; the men wear very 
loose, one might almost say flowing, coats, short 
waistcoats, gay neckties, and high felt hats when 
in ''full dress" — ordinarily they dispense with a 



THE ROMSDAL. 1 05 

coat ; the women wear short daiis. w^oollen skirts, 
white bodies, bright or white handkerchiefs on 
their heads, and silver brooches and chains of an- 
tique make. A large wedding-party came on 
board in this attire and with an air of solemnity 
that included even the violinist, who appeared 
much more ready for an epitaph than an epithala- 
mium. The bride was not of the number ; and 
the groom, a stalwart young fellow in brown coat 
and scarlet cravat, soon found himself unequal to 
the embarrassing occasion and shyly retired out 
of sight. When the landing-point was reached he 
reappeared, full of care for certain barrels which 
he and his ' ' best man" rolled on shore, contain- 
ing, we were told, supplies for the wedding- feast, 
beer, fladbrod, cheese, and sweet cakes. Several 
quiet cheers and exclamations of '"God Held/" 
("Good luck !") saluted their departure; and we 
waved our handkerchiefs, wishing that we had an 
invitation to the ceremony. The party was to pro- 



Io6 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

ceed to the home of the bride, two or three miles 
distant, and the festivities, lasting three days, would 
begin on their arrival. The marriage takes place 
at the church al\va}s on Sunday ; each guest brings 
a present, and the bride wears the silver girdle 
and frontlet and the high silver crown which in- 
vests every Norwegian girl with queenly honors 
for one day in her life, and then these ornaments 
are laid away until another bride comes to claim 
them. Another party landed to attend a pro- 
tracted religious meeting in which fasting was not 
a feature, as they also were furnished with barrels 
of provisions. The trunks and boxes that came 
and went were curiosities for a museum. They 
were usually painted in bright colors, such as a 
dark-blue ground with red and yellow flowers, to 
which the dates were added : we noticed one 
dated 1782, and another still fit for service revealed 
a world of domestic contentment in the figures 
1689! 



THE ROMSDAL. 107 



As we proceeded down the Nord fiord the 
mountains became higher and more imposing, 
until the steamer turned almost at right angles 
into that superb water-defile, the Geiranger fiord, 
which one writer pronounces the " culmination of 
all the fiords of that region, its only rival in Nor- 
way, perhaps in the world, being the Nero fiord, '^ 
which it resembles. ' Its dark, unmeasured depths 
are walled by rocky cliflis, often perpendicular, 
which rise to the height of three thousand to four 
thousand feet. Countless light, gauzy waterfalls 
descend from their summits, often uniting in one 
roaring mass ; stunted firs and birches cling where- 
ever their roots can find support, and adventurous 
flowers sway from the crevices. Our liquid path 
is so narrow and the curves so abrupt that the 
steamer sometimes appears to be running sharply 
against the rocks, while the spray of the falls 
bathes it in a gentle shower. When winter reigns 
supreme, avalanches of snow and stones thunder 




VS L 



,'^"?i^"^i :■ 












THE ROMSDAL. 109 



down from these majestic bastions, whose tops are 
never touched by the sun, except for a brief hour 
or two at high noon. And yet in this awful soH- 
tude a few human beings Hve and move and pre- 
serve their being. We saw two cabins on differ- 
ent mountains, ahiiost overhanging the ledge like 
eagles' nests. The small grassy plateaux on which 
they stand are at least two thousand feet from the 
black flood below ; an apparently perpendicular 
path and a tiny boat forming the only means of 
communication with the world. A cow that 
grazes on the mountain-top, and perhaps a couple 
of goats, furnish milk. Goats and babies are teth- 
ered to the threshold or the rocks, but adults have 
occasionally by a fatal misstep been precipitated, 

" Low and lower, to their watery graves, 
With downward face and wide-spread hair!" 

When a death occurs in winter, the body is laid 
away in snow until the return of spring permits 



I r O NOR WA Y NIGH TS. 

interment in the nearest village cemetery. It is 
inconceivable that all the fulness of our generous 
planet should offer nothing but this perilous, des- 
olate scrap of earth to these poor families. They 
possess, to be sure, the rare boon of pure air and 
unadulterated food, such as it is, and would 
doubtless answer our fretful inquiry, " Is life worth 
living.?" from a standpoint very remote from ours; 
but we, from the plane below, recalled the remark 
of Theophile Gautier when visiting the Escorial: 
' ' Whenever hereafter I find myself bored or un- 
happy, I shall be consoled in remembering that I 
mis:ht be at the Escorial and that I am not there. " 

o 

On the whole, for a short stay the hut on the 
Geiranger would seem to me preferable. 

Only an hour is required for the tr aver see of 
this unique defile ; the steamer stops half an hour 
at Merak, the village at the end, and the return 
through the fiord imprints every detail on the 
memory. There are many beautiful excursions 



THE ROMSDAL. I 1 1 



from Merak ; in fact, the guide-books teem with 
alluring invitations to by-ways as well as high- 
ways all through the Scandinavian peninsula. 

Emerging from the Geiranger, the boat crossed 
to Hellesylt, the village where we intended to pass 
the night. We made our way up a rough, stony 
path to as primitive an inn as can w^ell be seen, to 
find it so crowded ("crowd " implying about two 
dozen people) that we gladly returned to the 
steamer, which the captain had previously warned 
us would be more comfortable. He received us 
with a friendly laugh and with Spanish hospitality : 
" I thought you would come back, ladies! Now 
the boat shall all be yours, to-night — only give me 
my cabin."' We were put in possession of the 
dining-saloon, with the small ladies' cabin for a 
dressing-room ; we had blankets and pillows ad 
libitum; and when six o'clock came the next morn- 
ing were still sleeping undisturbed by the hasty 
toilet, the bill, and the rush to the boat which 



112 .VO/^tVAV NIGHTS. 

preluded the breakfast of our fellow-travellers. 
The weather was dull, and the wind fresh ; the 
steamer again crowded with peasants coming and 
going, and there was no first-class deck. Again 
the good captain came to our aid and gave us his 
own cabin, where with wraps and rugs we had a 
retrospect of the Nord fiord, increased in interest 
by his traditions of the rocks and stories of the 
people, recounted in fair English. The mate was 
equally entertaining, and very proud of his three 
visits to the United States. "O yes, "'he said in 
reply to some encouraging remark, "I like New 
York ; I lived in a fine street there^ — Pearl Street. 
You know Pearl Street .? And I have been to 
Chicago, too ; I was there when the great fire 
was. I want to go back again. O yes, if I live 
I shall see New York again before I die. " For 
the sake of our nationality he kept watch and 
ward over our audience-room, and banished the 
inquisitive boys and girls who peeped in at the 



THE ROMSDAL. II3 



door as if we were the royal animals of a menag- 
erie ; and when we left the steamer on arriving at 
Aalesund on the western coast, our trifling gra- 
tuity, accompanied by the gift of a purse from the 
city of his admiration, brought tears to his eyes. 
Norwegians usually receive good impressions of 
our country from their emigrating compatriots ; 
many of the seamen and skippers have sailed to 
and from our shores, and have brought back a 
slight knowledge of the language and reminis- 
cences of wonderful fruits, grand buildings, gala 
spectacles, and a general gorgeousness, such as 
the palaces of Bagdad offered to the dazzled eyes 
of Aladdin. 

We had several unemployed hours to spare at 
Aalesund before the arrival of the steamer for 
Molde, our next halting-place, and we improved 
this interval by rambling about the town. Al- 
though a small place of only six or seven thou- 
sand inhabitants, it is one of the principal sea- 



114 NOJ^lVAV NIGHTS. 

ports, and renowned for its good pilots, hardy 
fishermen, and codfishery. As Mark Twain said 
of Bermuda, "its pride and its joy, its gem and 
its jewel, is the Onion,'"' so of Aalesund its gem 
and its jewel is the Cod, whose mortal remains 
pervade the atmosphere with undeniable convic- 
tion. Italy and Spain are its final destination as a 
noun of multitude. When religious fast-days van- 
ish from that part of the world in the progress of 
ages, Aalesund will no longer find these so gen- 
erous marts for her codfish. Meanwhile Spain re- 
turns a more savory freight in excellent port-wine, 
which finds its way at moderate prices all over Nor- 
way. The town lies partly on the main-iand and 
partly on islands, thus affording to imaginative 
travellers a likeness to Venice. Two or three 
water-ways and bridges can never come together 
without the immediate exclamation "Venice !" as 
if prototype or semblance of the unique beauty of 
that peerless city ever yet existed anywhere ! Be- 



THE ROMSDAL. I 15 



hind the town rises a huge diff from which the 
sunset shining on the sea, and the fringe of islands 
off the coast, would be the delight and the despair 
of an artist. The streets are neither quaint nor 
old, but there is one historical relic — the ancient 
castle of ' ' Hrolf Gangr, " or Rollo the Walker, 
so called because, on account of his great height 
and size, no Norwegian horse could carry him. 
He was the conqueror and founder of the duchy 
of Normandy, the progenitor of William the Con- 
queror, and of the same mould and spirit as that 
race of Normans and Norsemen united who sub- 
jugated Sicily and inwove the iron threads of 
Scandinavian energy into the golden tissue of 
Arabic and Greek refinement. The country 
around Aalesund teems with traditions of the 
Sea-Kings who from this favorite point set their 
square sails and lofty prows in search of far-off 
Pactolian streams. 

We started on our voyage for INIolde about 



Il6 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



eight in the evening, and arrived there at two in 
the morning, after spending nearly all the interval 
in chatting on the deck with chance acquaintances. 
These June* nights-which-are-not-nights seem to 
steal the pivot from the wheel of Time, and our 
watches formed the habit of incorrigible lying. 
One o'clock, they say — and a pink and primrose 
sky flatly contradicts ; two o'oclock — a rosier gold, 
and lo, the sun ! No chronometer in the world 
could stand such bouleversement. 

Molde is a clean, pretty town of two thou- 
sand inhabitants, and is more favored in cli- 
mate than most others in Norway, for it stands 
on the western coast, under the influence of 
the Gulf Stream, and is sheltered from north 
winds by a range of hills. Flowers both wild 
and cultivated grow in abundance — roses, anem- 
ones, honeysuckles, butterfly-orchids, and many 
others. It boasts attractive villas and gardens, 
and charming walks up the hills, whence stretches 



THE ROMS DAL. II7 



an extensive panorama of the fiord with its 
many islands, and, beyond, snow-tipped moun- 
tains which recall the Bernese Alps as seen from 
the Schauzli. The new and excellent Grand 
Hotel, with its baths, balconies, and admirable 
cuisine, would have tempted us to many days' so- 
journ had not inexorable Fate waved in her hand 
our tickets, marked June 23, for the Capella, 
bound to the North Cape. No choice was left, 
and we embarked again at midnight on our sixth 
steamer. 



CHAPTER V. 



TRONDHJEM. 



THESE fiord steamers have a fashion of start- 
ing at such times as anywhere else would 
be objectionable ; but when the days are twenty- 
four hours long, one hour is as good as another. 

A few hours' sleep in comfortable cabins tided 
us kindly over the somewhat emotional open sea 
which sweeps around the coast, not always shel- 
tered by the breakwater of islands. We paused 
at Christiansund ''for cargo" as usual, but readily 
restrained our curiosity to see it, except from our 
cabin windows, as it has no interest for travellers. 
It is built with singular irregularity on three isl- 
ands ; there is nothing outside but the sea and 
barren rocks, and little inside except the,multi- 



TRONDHJEM. I 1 9 



tudinous cod. Beyond this point the scenery is 
rather picturesque. We sat on deck in view of 
friendly islands, and soon entered the extensive 
fiord of Trondhjem. En passant it may be said 
that all these fiord steamers provide an abundance 
of good food and good sleeping-cabins — which lat- 
ter, however, are few in number and ought to be 
engaged at least two or three days in advance by 
telegram or letter to the main offices. There is a 
curious custom of asking for families what they 
call a " moderation " price, which means that a man 
and his wife, or a brother and sister, pay for only 
one and a half tickets. This explains the title of 
a pleasant little book called " One and a Half in 
Norwav. "' 

I have not hitherto trenched on the province of 
the guide-books by mentioning prices, but it may 
be well to state here that the cost of travelling is 
about five dollars per day, including steamer-fares, 
cariole or trille, meals and beds. In the three large 



I20 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



cities, Bergen, Christiania, and Trondhjem, hotel- 
prices are much the same as in Switzerland and 
Germany. Railways are few, and for those who 
have time the post-roads are preferable, especially 
considering the facilities they constantly offer for 
detours into regions of grandeur and beauty neces- 
sarily shunned by the iron road. One hears of 
many discomforts in what are called the "slow 
stations'" — that is, where tourists are few and farm- 
ers have only two or three horses and poor ac- 
commodations ; but to see as well as to be the 
beautiful, — * ' ilfaut souffrir. " 

I am again impelled to laud the friendly, oblig- 
ing civility of the Norwegians ; and as to honesty, 
Diogenes might throw away his lamp, for his hon- 
est man is the universal man, Avoman, and child. 
Scarcely any crime is considered so disgraceful as 
dishonesty. An Englishwoman who had lived 
twenty-six 3'ears in Christiania said to us: "If you 
should fill this room with gold coins and send a 



TR ONDHJEM. 121 



Norwegian into it alone, he would not touch a 
single piece." Linen may be left on the grass all 
night to bleach ; trinkets and watches are safe on 
bedroom tables with doors unlocked ; and both 
purses and watches lost on the roads are taken to 
the nearest inn. This delightful trait includes 
honesty <C)'i speech and of deed, and is the nearest 
approach to the window in the heart which the 
.satirist of Olympus declared wanting in Vulcan's 
primeval man. One remembers with indignation 
the extortions formerly practised upon some of 
these unsophisticated emigrants in the great port 
of New York ; happily they are now much better 
protected : but in a country where peculations and 
falsehoods fly like thistle-down through the air, 
eternal vigilance is the price of justice. 

TROXDHJEM, 

the home of the Thrones, an important tribe 
of olden days, has always been the historical 



122 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 



capital, and the sovereigns of the United Kingdom 
are still crowned there in the cathedral. The ap- 
proach is picturesque by both land and water ; 
the town, numbering thirty thousand inhabitants, 
lies on a peninsula formed by the river Nid on 




In Trondhjem Cathedral. 

one side and the fiord on the other ; beyond are 
distant hills and the remains of a fort. The har- 
bor is gay with ships of every sort, especially the 
JcBgts, or copies of the Viking craft, with the same 
high prows and almost unaltered lines g(^. their 
prototypes ; and the quays are lined with dark-red 



TROXDHJEM. 1 23 



warehouses which extend into the water on piles, 
as in Holland. 

We had secured good rooms in the Britannia 
Hotel, where baths and beds were very welcome 
after three successive nights in steamers, as was 
also the well-prepared and well-served dinner 
in a pretty dining-room of carved wood from 
floor to rafters. The scene was animated by forty 
or fifty polyglot guests, among whom were half 
a dozen of our compatriots, and an elderly Eng- 
lishman whose volcanic cynicisms had amused 
us all the morning on the steamer. We went out 
after dinner for a survey of the city. As in all 
the other towns, the architecture is strikingly sim- 
ple, the houses being generally of wood and rarely 
more than two stories high ; the streets very broad 
and regular, and the churches without spires. 
Except on the quays and the market-place, there 
is an orderly stillness ; and the general aspect of 
the yellowish-gray houses would be dull but for 



124 ^^OJ^WAV nights. 



the pots of gay flowers that brighten every win- 
dow. 

I confess to the full amount of feminine inter- 
est in the shops of arctic furs and antique silver. 
There is reallv but one for furs, and that is 
Braun's, where we expected to find them better and 
V less expensive than anywhere else, unless in Rus- 
sia. But seal-skins cost very little less than in 
England, and silver-fox and sables were so dear 
that we reserved our purchases for their native 
country. We bought, however, unusually dark 
and beautiful Russian squirrel-robes at half the 
price they cost elsewhere. The antique silver gob- 
lets were very unique and finely engraved, and one 
proved irresistible. Among the spoons, not more 
than half a dozen tempted to purchase ; they cost 
from four to sixteen dollars — sixteen to seventy- 
five "kroner."' Those worth buying are now very 
scarce, most of them having taken Horace Gree- 
ley's advice and "gone West."' Modern filigree 



TRONDHJEM. 1 25 



work is well done and very pretty ; the art of mak- 
ing it w-as learned from two Genoese who strayed 
hither two hundred years ago. It is, however, 
scarcely so line as the Italian. 

There is no pr(.)minent street of shops ; they 
modestly occupy the first floor of dwellings, and 
are small and unpretending. There are several 
attractive drives in the neighborhood of Trond- 
hjem, one or two soi-disaiit gardens in the city, and 
a general air of comfort and content among the 
people. Prosperity is indicated by the ship-build- 
ing yards, paper-mills, and other manufactories, 
besides the exports of timber, fish, and copper 
from the mines of Roras, which have been worked 
two hundred and fifty years ; and, singularlv 
enough, cargoes of paving-stones have lately been 
sent to the city of New York ! 

The pride of Trondhjem and of all Norway is 
the cathedral, which was begun in the tenth cen- 
tury and was a hundred years in process of build- 




Apse of St. Olaf's Cathedral. 



TRONDHJEM. 1 2 7 



ing — a really beautiful specimen of the massive 
Norman and early English architecture, and, in 
spite of certain later disfigurements, considered 
the finest church in the three Scandinavian coun- 
tries. This ancient pile stands a little apart, in a 
well-kept church-yard, among such shrubs and 
flowers as the climate affords. It is built of a 
bluish slate which contrasts well with white mar- 
ble columns in the interior ; near the high altar 
stands a replica of Thorwaldsen's majestic Christ, 
presented by the sculptor, the eftect of which is 
very noble as seen from the entrance-door. The 
favorite Saint Olaf was buried here ; his shrine be- 
came a Mecca of the Catholic world, who enriched 
it with magnificent gifts, supplanted the temples 
C)f Odin with churches and monasteries, and 
brought great prosperity to Trondhjem, until the 
crusaders of the Reformation, in their turn, swept 
away the monasteries, sacked the shrine, and 
packed its gold and jewels in a ship which after- 



128 jVO/?^vav nights. 



wards foundered at sea. This was the beginning 
of many disasters ; several conflagrations and the 
pestilence of the ' ' Black Death" nearly annihi- 
lated the unhappy town until, about a hundred 
years ago, it struggled into life again, and now 
holds its own right valiantly, encouraged also by 
the railways to Christiania and to Stockholm. 

We were a jubilant party at Trondhjem, proud 
of our punctuality and our strict adherence to our 
chart of travel ; happy that no personal accident 
or failure of any kind had barred our way. As 
the fiord steamers ply only on certain days, which 
are frequently changed, the delay of a single day 
might have entailed the loss of our rooms on the 
Capella. But here we were, within twenty-four 
hours' sail of that Arctic Ocean which we had so 
often traversed in fancy, and, turning away from 
the generous but unsufficing Past, we lifted eager 
eyes towards that anomalous meridian which 
marks the fusion of day with immediate day again. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 



nnHE first tourist steamer of the season had 
^ sailed June 21 St ; the Capella, of three days 
later, considered even better, lay in the harbor 
awaiting its freight of forty passengers. It had 
good cabins, a good cuisine, and excellent officers. 
Captain Iveson, a handsome, comfortable-looking 
man, won our hearts by his first act of courtesy. 
The only two cabins which we were able to secure 
two weeks previously proved uncomfortably small 
for a party of three, and with dismay in our hearts 
we applied to him for another. One large cabin 
remained disengaged, but that one, he said, might 
have been secured at Bergen ; he could not tell 



130 A^OJ^IVAV NIGHTS. 

until the passenger-list should arrive that day. 
Here was the first contretemps of our tour, and 
we were apprehensive of very crowded quarters 
during our eight days' voyage. 

"Give yourselves no anxiety, ladies," said this 
most gracious of ship-masters; " if there is no 
other cabin, I will give you mine. " 

We assured him we would gladly indemnify 
V him for the sacrifice, — his cabin was the laro^est 

and best on the steamer, — but he would not listen 
to this proposal, and said he had given it away 
many a time. Happily the necessity was avoided, 
as no new passengers appeared at the last mo- 
ment. I will say en passant that it is best to 
secure tickets two or three weeks, at least, in ad- 
vance from the main ofiice at Bergen ; not know- 
ing this, we had bought ours at Christiania when 
all the best cabins assigned to that ofiice had 
already been disposed of. The prices are from 
fourteen to fifteen pounds sterling, everything 



THE ARCTIC OCEAJST. 131 

included. On all but the tourist steamers meals 
are not included. 

We went on board at midnight, in the pink and 
purple hour between two days. A crowd stood 
on shore to watch the departure. " Farvels" rang 
through the air, handkerchiefs waved, the anchor 
was raised, and with a resolute purpose in her 
heart our Capella started for the land of the Mid- 
night Sun. 

We watched the little city with its hills receding 
and the islands approaching ; we reviewed our 
fellow-passengers as they walked the deck in the 
self-gratulation of a fresh departure, and we cast 
our social horoscope with the usual quick, furtive 
observation of prospective comrades on a sea-voy- 
age. Our forty passengers made a desirable num- 
ber for comfort on the Capella, though it has car- 
ried a hundred and twenty. There were about a 
dozen English and Americans ; the remainder were 
Danes, Swedes, Germans, Russians, and one 



132 NO/?M^AV NIGHTS. 



elderly Italian, whose only vocabulary was as use- 
less as Patagonian in Norway, but who managed 
with his unfailing good-humor and the aegis of 
Cook's tickets to be sent forward like an express 
parcel well labelled. At the table we were seated 
next the captain, and our ears had the inestimable 
privilege of hearing four unknown languages at 
the same time from our opposite neighbors — a 
Russian general, courtly and decisive ; a member 
of the Swedish parliament, ponderous and solemn ; 
a professor from Upsala University, with flowing 
locks and a fair, sprightly wife ; and, as the fourth 
in this bewildering fugue, a Dane, whose incessant 
chatter never ceased during the entire voyage. 

Our first day from Trondhjem presented no very 
striking scenery. We were first in the Trondhjem 
fiord, and afterwards in a network of islands, the 
cliffs and rocks of which are not lofty, and have 
no salient features except the bare and broken 
contortions produced by the action of ice and 



THE ARCTIC OCEAX. I 33 



snow. Sometimes we pass into what appears a 
large lake, with innumerable little bays and arm- 
lets running into the fissures of the mountains ; 
again the channel narrows and dark ledges of 
snow-tipped rock stretch across it. Even in July 
fogs and sleet often envelop this coast with 
dreary mantle ; but now the delightful air, the 
dreamy perspectives, and fair promise of both ba- 
rometer and thermometer left nothing to desire. 
A few clouds hovered around, which awakened a 
little anxiety lest they should veil our first view of 
the midnight sun ; but as the day wore on they 
kindly drifted above the horizon. 

During the entire voyage the weather was so 
calm that there was no question of discussion be- 
tween digestion and dinner with even the most 
sensitive vuyageur, and every day we went on 
shore to see some point of interest. The busi- 
ness of the ship was to entertain the passengers ; 
and as we fell in with the unique amusements 



134 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

thus presented, and also formed friendly alliances 
with our neighbors, the excursion soon took on 
the semblance of a private yachting-party. 

We landed the first day on an island named 
Torgnet, which is surmounted by a lofty, precipi- 
tous rock called Torghaetten, from its fancied like- 
ness to a colossal hat or hood. The rock is about a 
thousand feet high, and perforated in the centre by 
a natural tunnel or cavern through which appears, 
as a picture in a gigantic frame, the sky and a 
group of islands on the other side. This remark- 
able orifice is five hundred feet up the rock, and 
one of the amusements of the voyage is to scram- 
ble up and look through it. After a few hundred 
yards over a flower-sprent, marshy meadow, the 
ascent is rough and steep, up and over great stones 
and debi'is, and through pools of water. At the 
edge of the cavern we came upon a group of fresh- 
cheeked peasant-girls in white bodices and gay 
handkerchiefs, offering photographs and bowls of 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1 35 

milk. I was very grateful in that toilsome path 
for the aid of the first officer, a Scandinavian 
Adonis with beautiful, clear coloring, and kindly 
ways, always ready to act the part of preux cheva- 
lier to ladies young and old. 

Of course a tragic legend is attached to this 
striking freak of nature, the Torghsetten, for 
through all this stern and rugged coast superstition 
naturally takes that form. The story here is 
much like that of Daphne pursued by Apollo, 
with a Nemesis thrown in, and the persons of 
the drama stand in perpetual stone. 

After resuming our voyage, the mountains on 
either side soon become very imposing, especially 
a range of seven weird peaks three thousand feet 
high, called the Seven Sisters, which, according to 
traditions of the Finns, the first inhabitants of 
Norway, are the homes of spirits hostile to all 
their successors. Farther on is a wonderful 
mountain called the Hestemand (Horseman), 



136 N'ORWAY NIGHTS. 

which by aid of imagination becomes a flying 
rider with wide-extended mantle, crags and cHffs 
representing the head of his steed and his own 
hand. Next appears on our fast-changing pano- 
rama the vast glacier of the Svartis, hundreds 
of square miles in area, which covers a plateau 
four thousand feet high and sends several of its 
jagged spurs quite down to the sea. 

Soon after the captain summons us with the 
electric words, "Now, ladies and gentlemen, we 
are entering the Arctic Circle ;" and, executing a 
gay little pas-seul on the centre of the deck, he 
stretches a rope firmly across to represent the line 
that divides us from the zone we leave behind. 
"You must be on duty till two o'clock," he adds ; 
"no one is allowed to go to bed : there is too 
much to see ; and coffee will be served on deck at 
twelve." For the first time we were far enough 
northward to see the sun at that mystic hour. All 
the day we had anxiously watched barometer and 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1 37 

clouds. In truth they threatened disappointment, 
until about half-past eleven at night — night was 
Day, for we passed from light to Light — and then 
we beheld a marvel of a sunset. 

Over the vast dome, almost to the zenith, the 
gray cloud-masses floated away in long fleecy 
scrolls of crimson and orans^e, in feathery fila- 
ments of transparent radiance, in downy flecks of 
deep purple edged with gold. Points and peaks 
both of mountains and clouds, in infinite irregu- 
larities, "with sunfire garlanded," sentinelled the 
sea, and stretched far northward till lost in translu- 
cent mist. Sea-birds disported themselves on the 
flashing waves, their sombre feathers transmuted 
to tropical iridescence. The sun slowly descended 
to the edge of the horizon ; — and then, with 
one kiss on the radiant water, rose with elastic re- 
bound ! The dying and the new-born day clasp 
hands in mutual embrace as they pass through the 
duplicate golden portal ; every ripple is a jewelled 



138 JVOJ^IVAV NIGHTS. 

witness, every quiver of air an echo, of the celestial 
drama. 

The beauty and the marvel of the scene brought 
silence upon all our little company ; each one 
seemed afraid to speak lest he should break 
the spell, until, by imperceptible gradations of 
form and hue, the clouds v^ere again lost in full 
blaze of light. 

Then we were summoned to our ca/e au lait, a 
Httle weary of the kaleidoscopic views of the long 
day, but reluctant even then to lose any hours in 
sleep. In truth we lost very few, for the steamers 
arrange so as not to pass the salient points during 
sleeping-hours — that is, from one o'clock in the 
morning until seven or eight. Some of the pas- 
sengers never lost more than four or five hours ; 
others remained on deck, wrapped in rugs and 
ulsters, dreamily gazing through the filmy smoke 
of their cigars at the ever-shifting peaks and pro- 
montories, glaciers and waterfalls, hamlets, fishing- 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1 39 

boats and ships, blue in shadow, but ghstening in 
the pecuhar mellow light of that northern sea. 
Sometimes they would waken from a half-con- 
scious nap to see close upon the Capellds bows a 
huge Viking ship, a ghost of ten centuries ago 
returned to look for its comrades — not, however, 
bristling with battle-axe and shields, but freighted 
with freshly-cut timber and highly realistic cod and 
herring. Murray says of these jfcegts : "So pre- 
judiced are the people who build and navigate 
them that they will not make the slightest altera- 
tion in their build or rig ; they will not even avail 
themselves of the use of the windlass, so that the 
huge square sail requires the same power to haul 
it to the mast-head that it did twelve hundred 
years since ; and for the same reason the anchor 
has to be supplied with a special tripping to cant 
it before it can be lifted. Many are now carvel- 
built, but until recendy they were all clinker-built, 
with great breadth of beam and small draught of 



I40 .VOJ?tVAV NIGHTS. 

water, enabling them to sail very fast before the 
wind, but in beating they are apt to fall to lee- 
ward. " 

The first coaling-point touched by the steamer 
was Bodoe, a village of fifteen hundred inhabitants, 
endowed with a telegraph-station, but not suffi- 
ciently interesting to tempt us to go on shore ; 
though if one had time and inclination, the excur- 
sions from these lead into the very heart of all 
that is most wild and stern in Norway, especially 
among the Lofoden islands, which we passed 
very soon after Bodoe. They form a remarkable 
maze of red granite cliffs, bays, and narrow straits, 
interspersed with thousands of rocky islands, 
forming a chain one hundred and thirty miles 
long. Some of them have the appearance of vol- 
canic craters, and are so sharply indented that they 
are compared to the jaw of a great shark, with 
its projecting teeth. Snow-peaks and glaciers lie 
among them, and a touch of life is given by fish- 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 14I 

ermen's huts and flocks of sea-birds. Among 
these straits are many dangerous currents, espe- 
cially the Maelstrom, which formerly we were 
laught was a horrible whirlpool sure to en- 
gulf every object that comes near it. Though 
this is now pronounced a fable, the fact remains 
that when the wind blows from the northwest and 
meets the returning tide in the strait, the whole 
area of the Maelstrom becomes so turbulent that 
no ship could live in it for a moment, although 
outside the sea may be as still as glass. To add to 
the danger, the depth of the bottom very suddenly 
decreases and the whole weight of water from the 
North Sea is suddenly compressed between the 
two cliffs that form the strait ' a ship must there- 
fore inevitably strike on sunken rocks or founder 
in the fury of the waves. There is another very 
narrow inlet near the Maelstrom into which un- 
wary whales occasionally stray, and finding it 
impossible to turn their huge bodies, they are 



142 JVOJ^]VAV NIGHTS. 



grounded with the falHng tide, and sometimes 
struggle with their fate several days before dying 
in this natural trap, while the coast resounds with 
their bellowings and struggles. A large fortune is 
not often so vehemently thrust upon a man as it 
was in the case of a farmer who owned the land 
adjacent to this strait and became in a few years 
legatee of about twenty of these valuable cetaceans, 
whereupon he was dubbed with the title of King 
of the Lofoden Islands. 

We did not steer within sight of these fatal cur- 
rents, and our best view of the islands was on 
our return voyage, when we ran close to their 
base. The gigantic rocks rising almost perpen- 
dicularly from the sea are gnarled, twisted, and 
rent in every imaginable form, and the snow on 
their tops contrasts vividly with a remarkable 
green and yellow moss that grows in large patches 
upon them, and looks at a distance like a lumi- 
nous field of opal and gold. The waters here, as 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 143 

on the entire coast, may be called the life-blood of 
Norway ; from January to April about twenty 
thousand men are engaged in the Lofoden fishing 
for cod. They are a brave and temperate race, 
who suffer great hardships in the winter, espe- 
cially from the northwesterly gales, which often 
drive their boats into open seas, where they in- 
evitably capsize. But the climate is on the whole 
so tempered by the Gulf Stream that even this 
part of Norway is pleasantly habitable, while 
Greenland, in the same latitude (about 67°), is a 
desert of ice. If this beneficent river should take 
a new departure, the fish would emigrate, — and 
then so must the people, or starve. 

The once busy town of Tromsoe, where we 
landed the second morning after leaving Trond- 
hjem, has fallen off seriously within a few years 
on account of a freak on the part of the fish, 
which for reasons unknown have nearly deserted 
that locality. We went on shore at Tromsoe, 



144 JVO/?lVAV NIGHTS. 



which is the principal settlement within the Arctic 
Circle, built on a green, well-wooded island, and 
enjoying a milder climate than most of the coast. 
Nothing could be more severely simple than the 
' ' Cathedral " (one of the rarely-seen Catholic 
churches of Norway), the bank, the school- 
houses, and the red-roofed dwellings. We went 
into several shops of furs of various sorts, in rugs, 
overcoats, and ladies' cloaks, insupportably heavy ; 
also white fur shoes trimmed with red cloth made 
by the Lapps. Several of these queer little nom- 
ads were bargaining for exchange of products, 
and regarded us with more good-humor than curi- 
osity, for they are accustomed to the sight of sum- 
mer visitors. We strayed into a small museum 
and examined a natural-history department of 
fishes and animals peculiar to that region, but 
all of which we had seen in other collections. 
Another room was devoted to objects used by the 
Laplanders — weapons, ornaments, clothing, etc., 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1^5 



rather barbaric, but not lacking picturesqueness. 
In a small collection of coins we were surprised 
to see a ten-cent bit of United States paper cur- 
rency, a "One Dollar"' note, and two Confederate 
notes of soi-disant high value. 

The birch trees of Tromsoe are rather fine for 
that latitude ; wild-flowers, such as pale violets, 
heather, and buttercups, make a pathetic effort to 
represent summer, and pots of geraniums appear 
in every window. Fruits and vegetables of 
course refuse to grow. The first ofiicer told us 
that he had spent a winter there, and although 
they could dispense with lamps only five or six 
hours of the twenty-four, the nights were en- 
livened by dances, music, and theatricals, and al- 
together it was social and agreeable. The Aurora 
Borealis is a most kindly alleviation of those in- 
terminable months, and must be almost as well 
worth seeing as the Midnight Sun, Two oil- 
paintings of it hung outside of a shop-window 



146 JVOJ^fVAV NIGHTS. 

which we passed, and though they represented an 
apparently supernatural gorgeousness of color, 
our friend assured us they did not exaggerate. 

This part of Norway is called Finmark, and 
from here to the North Coast of Scandinavia and 
Russia roam those dwellers in tents called Finns 
and Lapps. Once masters of the w^hole peninsu- 
la, they have been gradually driven to the bleak 
and desolate mountains, where they exist with 
their reindeer in a state of perennial content- 
ment — a frame of mind either appertinent to 
nomads who have become an integral part of 
Nature itself, or attained after a severe struggle 
against the ' ' divine despair" of high civilization. 
Some of the Norwegian Lapps come down to the 
valleys near Tromsoe in the summer season for the 
pasturage and fishing, and travellers usually visit 
their encampment. 

The steamer sent us in boats to the shore, where 
horses were waiting for those who preferred the 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1 47 



saddle to the walk of two miles in a charming 
birch-forest, through which ran a bustling rivulet. 
The air was perfect, the sky true blue, and the 
brief change from deck to shore very agreeable. 
As we approached the encampment which lay at 
the foot of green mountains, we saw a few hun- 
dred reindeer inclosed within a rude picket of 
tree-branches, several circular huts, and forty or 
fifty uncouth-looking men, women, and children, 
nearly all with pipes in their mouths. Nature has 
not been gracious to this tribe : she has stunted 
their stature to four and five feet, and has given 
them high cheek-bones, flat noses, thick, wide 
mouths, and swarthy skins, inharmonious with 
small blue eyes, to which they add long, unkempt 
brown hair. Even the babies looked old and 
smoke-dried, and the old people as shrivelled as 
mummies. But the good-humor of their faces 
goes a long way towards atonement. When we 
declined to buv their fur shoes and reindeer-horn 







Laplander, 



THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 1 49 

spoons, they smiled as imperturbably as a Parisian 
shop-keeper. However, we bestowed small coins, 
and regretted, as usual, that we had no gay bar- 
baric trifles to give them, or the more useful boon 
of coarse needles for the women. The men 
wore loose tunics of reindeer-skin, often sadly des- 
titute of hair and sometimes made on the reverse 
side, fastened round the waist w4th belts, to which 
knives and tobacco-pouches were attached; 
peaked boots or shoes of reindeer-skin, the fur 
outwards and trimmed, as were their leggings, with 
bright red or blue woollen cloth ; pointed caps of 
red or blue wool surmounted their elfin locks. 
The women were clad in short, bright-colored 
woollen skirts, to which smoke and dirt had added 
a tint or two, and reindeer jackets so adjusted as 
to show rather lavishly the scraggy brow^n throat 
decked with silver ornaments. True to the undy- 
ing instinct of the sex, they regarded our dress 
with curiosity, and |)robably were disappointed in 



ISO 



NORWAY NIGHTS. 




the quiet hues ; but the gift to one young woman 
of a red-satin bow taken from a parasol was rap- 
turously received and thrust 
for safe-keeping into her 
bosom, as a treasure not to 
be lightly displayed. The 
hands of both men and 
Lapp Wedding-ring. women would puzzle Des- 
barolles ; they are remarkably small and well- 
shaped, with almost ' ' artistic" fingers. 

We received ready admission into one of their 
Gammer, or huts, through an inconveniently low 
entrance, which was closed with a reindeer-skin. 
It was not more than eight feet in diameter, built 
of birch-bark supported on saplings, and filled 
in with earth ; the walls inside hung with deer- 
skins, wooden bowls, cheese, dried meat, guns ; 
and in one corner was a chest, probably for 
holiday clothing. In the centre was a fire, and a 
kettle hung over the embers ; a very young Lapp, 



THE ARCTIC OCEAK. 151 



hideous as a monkey, lay choking in the smoke, 
and several other scions of the family toddled al- 
most into i\\Q pot au /eu, while at least three women 
endeavored to do the honors of the mansion. 

The limitations of such a life are inconceivable, 
when we learn that these people know how to 
read and write after a fashion, and say their pra\- 
ers devoutly in Lutheran churches when the op- 
portunity offers. There are itinerant schoolmas- 
ters who instruct them a few weeks in the sum- 
mer, employed by the government at the exorbi- 
tant rate of twenty-five dollars the season, the 
colony of Lapps contributing five dollars more ; 
and we noticed at Hammerfest on Sunday sev- 
eral Lapps in the little church we visited. They 
were gross idolaters, however, until in 1600 a. d. 
Christian IV. of Denmark and Norway broke up 
their worship with great severity. The most ve- 
hement and fanatical preachers are the most pop- 
ular with them — and there are many such in Nor- 



152 A^OJ?lVAV NIGHTS. 

way. Nevertheless the dust of ancient supersti- 
tions still clings to their feeble brains ; they be- 
lieve in witchcraft and in the Troller, or evil spirits 
of the woods, and maintain the legendary supe- 
riority of the polar bear as the most gifted of 
created beings, capable of hearing and resenting 
all disrespectful remarks that may be made about 
him. They are quite willing to destroy him, but 
never when he is asleep — only with honorable 
warning and an honorable weapon, such as a 
lance — never a gun. It is recorded that formerly 
they asked his pardon with tears before taking his 
life, like the executioner of Mary Queen of Scots ; 
but this ceremony is now omitted. 

The reindeer which were skilfully lassoed and 
driven for our benefit are picturesque animals, 
v/ith their pale, gray skins and great branching ant- 
lers ; the least exacting of all the servitors of man, 
as they require no sustenance but the mountain 
moss, which they scent even several feet beneath 




Lapp Woman and Baby. 



154 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

the snow. As the herd ran past, a pecuhar crackle 
of their hoofs — or, as others say, of the knee-joint 
— was very noticeable, like a quick succession of 
electric snaps. 

We were told that the family relations of the 
Lapps are very kindly, and that they are a happy, 
contented race, though inferior to their neighbors, 
the Finns, in mind and appearance. I noticed 
that one ot them who was fishing near our 
steamer was not allowed to come on board to re- 
ceive a proffered gratuity from a passenger. It 
was handed him from the gangway, no doubt 
from aversion to closer contact. So much for our 
narrow prejudice in favor of soap and water ! On 
the whole, our visit to the Lapps was one of the 
most interesting incidents of the voyage, and we 
came away with considerable respect for a people 
who, imprisoned two thirds of the year in dark- 
ness and storm, and browbeaten by desolate 
mountains, preserve the graces of contentment and 
good-nature. 



CHAPTER VII. 



HAMMERFEST. 



IT would be wearisome to my readers to trace 
too accurately our course around the count- 
less islands, fiords, promontories, and cliffs ; nor 
would I trench on the provinces of the guide- 
hooks. Xow on the right, now on the left, the 
rapid variety appealed to our attention, and gave no 
time for reading or for the diversions of an ordi- 
nary sea-voyage. Sleep seemed almost culpable 
during that single day of one hundred and eighty 
hours, from the midnight of our leaving Trond- 
hjem to the noon of our return ; watches were the 
relics of a past and fettered existence, "Good- 
night"' an irony. We had no nights in Norway ; 
the boldest pretension to the name was a gloam- 



V 



156 JVOJ^J^^AV NIGHTS. 

ing quickly followed by sunrise. We never 
lighted a candle, and moon and stars were invis- 
ible and superfluous. Philosophers say we can 
do very well without essentials : ' ' Le luxe cest la 
chose Men necessaire. " We did very well without 
moon and stars, and the absence of darkness was 
perpetual pleasure. An astronomer has lately as- 
serted that lo, the satellite of Jupiter nearest that 
planet, must be far in advance, physically and 
mentally, of all other bodies in our solar system, 
inasmuch as it is always bathed in his light, and 
also in that of his other satellites. And thus dur- 
ing the few weeks in which the inclination of the 
earth's axis brings these northern regions imme- 
diately under solar influence, all vegetable and 
doubtless all animal life receives increased vitality, 
which on the coast of Norway is heightened by 
the invigorating air of ocean. Grass is cut at 
Hammerfest one month after the snow has melted 
from the ground. 



HAMMER FES T. 157 



The midnight spectacle between Tromsoe and 
Hammerfest was less brilliant than the night be- 
fore. The atmosphere was cooler, the sky gray 
and misty ; but the veil parted at the critical 
moment, and, as we had now reached a higher 
latitude, the sun sank only to a point several de- 
grees above the horizon, before rising again. The 
interest of this phenomenon is increased by the 
fact that a clear sk}- is by no means guaranteed. 
During the five nights of the voyage within the 
Arctic Circle it often happens that fogs and rain 
are incessant. The tourist ship that started June 
20th, three days before the Cape/la, never had a 
glimpse of the sun at midnight during the entire 
voyage ; nor did the one that sailed June 27th. 
We were therefore unusually favored in seeing it 
three times in full glory. Of course this is only 
one episode in the voyage ; the marvellous coast 
scenery is enough in itself to entrance a lover of 
nature, who readily sees how the mythopoeic sense 



158 JVOJ^PVAV NIGHTS. 

of the early Scandinavians peopled it with deities 
stern as its snow-clad crags, remorseless as its gla- 
ciers, wild and tragic as its winter winds. 

We arrived Sunday, the morning of the 27th, 
at Hammerfest, an unimaginably quaint place and 
the most northerly town in the world, although 
tiny settlements have tentatively crept still nearer 
to the mystic Pole. The wayward streets straggle 
around the harbor, which is crowded with un- 
familiar craft manned by Danish, Norse, and Rus- 
sian sailors, brawny and sometimes picturesque, 
lolling on piles of lumber on shore, pipe in 
mouth, or taking on cargo. The nature of the 
cargo reveals itself — the ubiquitous Cod is master 
of the field ; he is manufactured into oil, he 
hangs on lines along the harbor, is packed in 
tumuli on the shore, and is a Smell forever, near 
and from afar. We enjoyed the ' ' freedom of 
the city " for only an hour or so, as our captain 
had to keep his appointment with the Royal Orb 







Hammekfest. 



l6o NORWAY NIGHTS. 

at the North Cape twelve hours later. We sent 
telegrams and letters for the sake of the post- 
marks ; and we looked at the granite meridian 
column erected to commemorate the measure- 
ment of the number of degrees between the 
mouth of the Danube and Hammerfest, The 
sidewalks are raised two to four feet above the 
streets, and are reached by rude wooden steps. 
Several small shops displayed bear-skins, walrus- 
tusks, and Lapp costumes, and we encountered 
several Lapps and Finns strolling about in Sunday 
garb, cleaner and brighter in color, some of them 
on their way to the church, where the bishop was 
holding a special service. 

We ascended the hill on which the primitive 
edifice stands, and entering, took places near the 
door. Two or three hundred decent folk, con- 
spicuous among them the Lapps, were devoutly 
listening to a depressing hymn which was followed 
by a high-keyed, monotonous prayer or exhorta- 



HAMMERFEST. 1 6 1 

tion, we could not decide which. Our moments 
were few ; we turned to retreat, but lo ! the 
verger had locked the door inside and put the key 
in his pocket. We motioned for release, but he 
shook his head. We waited five impatient minutes, 
and I then made a second appeal, whispering the 
word ''Dampskib, " and pointing on my watch 
to the hour of its departure. That immovable 
custodian only shook his head more obstinately, 
and gazed fixedly at the preacher. We heard the 
ship's bell ring for the passengers' return, and 
trembled at the thought of being abandoned to 
our fate. At last the prayer reached its ultimate 
note, the key was deliberately turned in the door, 
we flew to the boat, the boat flew to the steamer, 
and ' ' home, sweet home" was never more wel- 
come. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

NORTH CAPE AND MIDNIGHT SUN. 

A FTER we left Hammerfest and its amenities, 
-* *■ the scenery changes in character ; Alpine 
peaks give place to monotonous high plateaux 
almost bare of vegetation. No sound breaks the 
silence. No object invades the solitude except 
flocks of sea-birds which hover over shoals of fish 
or congregate upon their rocky homes. As the 
day moves on we watch the sky with deep interest, 
for filmy fronds and plumes of cloud lightly gather 
over the blue, and we know that fog and mist will 
be fatal to our hope for that supreme epoch, our 
only midnight hour at the North Cape. 

"Captain, what of the barometer.''" 



NORTH CAPE AND aMIDNIGHT SUN. 163 

''The glass goes up," he rephes, not without a 
deprecating glance around the horizon. He iden- 
tifies himself with our desires and feels an almost 
personal responsibility for their fulfilment. We] 
study the heavens like astronomers ; we walk the^ 
deck with restless steps, and note all signs. The 
horizon has grown broader as we advance in lati- 
tude, and now, at nearly 72'^, its sweep appears 
illimitable. At eleven o'clock the clouds have all 
melted out of sight, and a vast unbroken dome of 
pale blue spreads over a pale lavender sea. We 
are now passing the island of Mageroe, whose dark 
slate-rocks are furrowed with deep clefts, and at 
the extremity rises before us, one thousand feet al- 
most perpendicularly from the water, the isolated 

"huge and haggard shape 
Of that unknown North Cape." 

It is well knowix^iow to pilgrims from all tour- 
istdom who scramble up the steep, rough path, 



t64 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

drink champagne at the summit, and hide in 
hilarity their sentiment or their lack of sentiment 
as the case may be. It is a wearisome climb of at 
least an hour, impeded also by loose falling stones, 
but is guarded at certain points by ropes, and 
this year has been otherwise improved. A fisher- 
man has built a hut at the base of the rock, where 
he lives during the six weeks' summer. In the 
course of another decade or two, no doubt, some 
"enterprising" landlord would erect on the top a 
" Grand Hotel du Nord Gap," had not Nature abso- 
lutely insisted on all rights of fief and investiture. 

The boats were lowered, the passengers then 
landed and accompanied by sailors and officers 
toiled to the plateau above. Two or three who 
were not strong enough for this task returned to 
the steamer with handfuls of wild-flowers, and 
contented themselves with the sufficiently extensive 
prospect from the captain's bridge. 

For myself, I much preferred that quiet post of 



NORTH CAPE AND MIDNIGHT SUN. 1 65 

observation to the gay champagne-party on the 
summit. Standing there ahnost alone, with the 
silent helmsman at the unmoving wheel, and one 
or two spell-bound spectators, the poetry of the 
scene was irresistible. The sun, ten and a half 
degrees above the northern horizon, with no pomp 
or panoply of cloud about him, cast a dazzling 
sheen over the smooth, reflecting waves. Foun- 
tains of spray from disporting whales glistened 
against the pale primrose sky. A single snowy 
bird skimmed over the surface, its wings tipped 
with gold as it flew beyond the sight. Far behind 
us were the dreary islands untenanted by human- 
ity, all Europe and Asia, the emotions and pursuits 
of busy life, receding into shadowy indistinctness ; 
in front lay the immeasurable sea, quivering in 
light till lost in indefinite distance. The stillness 
was almost appalling ; not even a ripple broke 
upon our anchored ship. The light upon sky 
and water was not the light of day, nor yet of 



Ti i^rnK'n^"-"^' 'VP^ '\i^atu I i' ' Y'^'w--'- 






C 



NORTH CAPE AND MIDNIGHT SUN. 1 67 

night, but an ineffably tender blending of both in 
some divine alembic. As in dreams we are some- 
times freed from the fetters of gravitation and soar 
upward by mere act of volition, so it seemed 
that from our poise upon that plank it would be 
easy to rise and float away to the very heart of 
that heaven where there is no alternation of twi- 
light and dawn, no strophe and antistrophe of 
light and darkness, because ''there is no jiight 
there /"' 

Suddenly the boom of a gun announces that the 
sun has that instant touched his lowest perigee ; 
and with the precision of a royal planet, without 
Haste and without Rest, he turns his chariot- 
wheels, flings aside the Yesterday, and inaugurates 
To-day. Of all the impressive natural spectacles 
it has been my good fortune to behold, not one 
has so forcibly appealed to the imagination or 
has left such vivid trace on memory ; and I con- 
fess to deep regret when the prow of the ship 



1 68 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

turned away from that mysterious, illimitable sea 
which seems to whisper 

" That which you lose you see around you lying ; 
That which you own is far-off and undying." 

Our party returned from their scramble up 
and down the Cape, wet, tired, and in high spirits, 
having dreamed no dreams, save of white bears, 
of icebergs, and of all the bristling ramparts from 
which the Polar Sea defies science and curiosity. 
Let us hope that this one secret may remain a 
secret — "One, by Itself, singly, everlastingly 
Alone f — lest man should sit down and weep that 
not another inch is left for him to conquer. 

We nearly missed a tragedy that day. Among 
our passengers was a very young Englishman, 
who became a conspicuous numeral on our eight- 
day clock, partly on account of his irrepressi- 
ble high spirits and partly because he was accom- 
panied by a delightful little dog, Puck, in black 



NORTH CAPE AND MIDNIGHT SUN. 1 69 

and tan. They were both ubiquitous, all over the 
deck at the same moment, always in a frolic, 
and bans camarades w^th every one. The master, 
with a boy's passion for adventure, started to 
ascend the Cape a little in advance of the party, 
but, instead of taking the usual safe path, he at- 
tempted to climb over a dangerous mass of ice 
and snow which entirely covered one side of the 
mountain. The sailors who rowed the boat over 
protested in vain ; up he went, floundering in 
snow, until about half-way he sank into a cre- 
vasse of ice that left only his head and shoulders 
visible. A fisherman shouted to the captain, w^ho 
was in a small boat below. Angry and alarmed, 
he exclaimed, "He never can climb up, and he 
cannot get down ;*' hurried orders were issued to 
the sailors, two of whom were dispatched to the 
rescue from below, and a third, by the usual path; 
to lower ropes from above. With some difficulty 
hewas hoisted up, white and nearly frozen ; brandy- 



IJO NOR IV AY ALIGHTS. 



flasks were offered by the excited spectators, as 
well as sundry disapproving remarks to the reckless 
boy, which received no reply except "I must have 
looked jolly comical stuck in that icehole !" He 
was too plucky to admit that he was half dead with 
exhaustion ; but as soon as the midnight coffee 
was swallowed he and his faithful dog disappeared 
to the cabin for many hours. When there was 
a general promenade over a glacier, the following 
day, the officer in attendance ordered two sailors 
to follow that young man and not lose sight of 
him for a moment. By the laws of the steamer 
company the captain is required to wait two days 
for a passenger detained by casualty ; but this is 
an inconvenience to be avoided if possible. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE RETURN VOYAGE. 



THE first day of our return we paused at Swer- 
holt, in the Porsanger fiord, the largest of 
several islands monopolized by sea-birds. Up to 
the height of several hundred feet it was covered 
with thousands of the pretty creatures, that gyrated 
with incessant chatter or sat in long, unbroken 
lines which resembled rows of pearls on the dark 
slate-ledges. At the firing of two or three large 
guns they rose in fright and anger, dashed in mad 
circles, darted in aimless directions with multi- 
plied screams which, made confluent by distance, 
resembled, as we sailed away, the distant shriek of 
a locomotive ; a large number, however, bravely 



172 JVOJ?lVAV NIGHTS. 

remained on their nests, but doubtless said all the 
unpleasant things about us they could think of. 

The sea-birds of Norway are so interesting that 
I would gladly speak of their characters and habits 
at length, were it not that the monopolists in the 
"Diffusion of Useful Knowledge" have carried 
off the entire harvest in this field, without leaving 
a grain for the modest gleaner. But, even at the 
risk of telling an oft-told tale, I must repeat what 
1 heard orally about the eider-ducks. These par- 
ticularly pleasing birds are very numerous in cer- 
tain localities, and swim fearlessly in the very track 
of the steamers. When a duck and her mate 
have flaunted about sufficiently in their honey- 
moon, and have decided to rear a family and have 
a "settled home," they waddle to the shore and 
choose with much fastidiousness, but little perspi- 
cuity, an eligible site — generally on the ground in 
a retreat far from the madding crowd, but occa- 
sionally in the cleft of a rock, and they have been 



THE RETURN VOYAGE. 1 73 

known to take possession of a kitchen-oven. The 
nest is made of sea-moss, profusely padded with 
tender gray down from the duck's breast. This 
accomplished and the eggs laid, the pere de famille 
wanders back to his piscatorial and other amuse- 
ments in ver}' human style, while the poor 
mother finds her nest suddenly stripped of both 
eggs and down by the monster, man. She then 
makes her way through the waters to her lord, 
who has been considerate enough to leave his 
address, and they wade back to shore for a second 
experiment. But as the duck has already sacri- 
ficed her down, the drake now contributes his 
own, which, however, is white and less fine and 
valuable. The nests are despoiled a second time ; 
but if the robbery is again repeated, the discour- 
aged birds depart permanently from that part of 
the coast. Strangers are not allowed to visit the 
bird-islands, and Norwegians are careful to give 
the third brood every chance to hatch ; when the 



174 NO/^lVAV NIGHTS. 

ducklings are large enough to make their first 
plunge into the sea, they are protected as far as 
possible from the falcons and other foes which 
hover above. The islands are sources of large 
profit, and become heirlooms in families, of some- 
times one or two hundred years' descent. 

The great white auks which inhabit some of 
the far northerly islands are models of a social 
propriety and philanthropy that is limited to Auk- 
land. The females seem to be fewer in number 
than the males ; and as their conjugal relations are 
strictly observed, the bachelor-bird is forced to 
bide his time until death comes to the rescue and 
gives him an opportunity to unite himself with 
his brother's widow, which, not being a citizen of 
England, he can do with impunity. While await- 
ing this auspicious event, he does not sulk or rush 
into ornithological dissipation, but makes himself 
useful by assisting in the care of the young brood, 
and instructing them in all the rudiments of auk 



THE RETURN I'Oi'AGE. 175 



education. (As a plain matter of fact, it might be 
termed aukivarihiess.) If both parents die, he 
adopts the entire family ! 

One day two great eagles flew near the Capella, 
quite formidable enough to justify the stories of 
their audacity in attacking oxen and other large 
animals : by the device of dipi)ing their wings in 
the waves, then in the sand, they blind their prey 
by flapping against the eyes, when it loses in pain 
the power of resistance. Fhe lemming, a rodent 
larger than the water-rat, is a dreaded devastator of 
wheat-fields, and, notwithstanchng the agency of 
owls and hawks in destroying them, the}' were 
formerly made the subject of solemn exorcism by 
a Lemming Litany in the churches. 

In the rocky archipelago off this coast is a most 
desolate and gruesome island to which a noble 
Danish lady was once banished for some miscon- 
duct, and who perished at last by the upsetting of 
a boat on her wav to church in another almost 



176 JVOJ?WAV NIGHTS. 

equally weird locality. It offers as melancholy 
a mise-en-scene as the most sensational novelist 
could desire. 

Again we paused en route, to visit an extensive 
glacier where most of the passengers landed, 
walked a mile and a half over a marshy plain to 
the base of the field of ice, which they traversed 
for a short distance. It was never a dole e far 
niente to make one's rather perilous way over those 
beautiful blue, slippery and jagged tracts, and one 
of my party described her experience in this way : 
*'I was flat on my back or down on my knees 
most of the time, although there was a sailor on 
each side and an officer in front of me ; the sole 
of one of my boots was torn off, and I nearly 
lost the other ; it poured as we returned, and every 
one was drenched ; I went to bed after a cup of 
hot ginger-tea, and my clothes went to the engine- 
room to dry : but, notwithstanding all this, it was 
the most exhilarating experience of the whole 



THE RETURN VOYAGE. I 77 

voyage, full of fun and rivalry for the farthest 
point. " 

The final act in our varied excursion was a visit 
to a whale which had been caught the previous 
day and was lying on the premises of a factory 
near Tromsoe, where they dispose of the mortal 
remains of the race — a cetacean crematory which 
gives out an odor not to be described. The crea- 
ture, nearly fifty feet long, lay upon the shore, 
and beside it a baby-whale which had never 
even begun its briny career. The sight was a 
privilege, no doubt ; but not one to linger over, 
for already the workmen were hewing at one mas- 
sive longitudinal half; the other, still unmutilated, 
was by request turned over for exhibition — and all 
Arabia's spices and Lubin's perfumes would have 
been overpowered by the odor that pervaded the 
place. A friendly warning beforehand had led me 
to bring a bottle of eau-de-Cologne, with which 
we nearly suffocated ourselves to no purpose. 



1 78 JVOJ?lVAV NIGHTS. 

The ofenial festivities of the ' ' last dinner" on 
board ship have generally lost prestige since the 
ranks of travel have enlarged ; but the parting 
banquet on the Capella was a pleasant reminis- 
cence quite in keeping with the voyage. Marvels 
of confectionery decorated the tables, as well as 
all the varieties of fish, flesh, and fowl which Nor- 
way offers at this season. Our neighbors the 
Russian General, the Upsala Professor, and the 
Swedish Member of Parliament had previously 
held a conclave, the result of which was a com- 
plimentary flow of champagne, and a long, solemn 
oration, in French, from the M. P. , in which our 
voyage was compared to the passage of the Israel- 
ites over the Red Sea, conducted by the captain 
in the r^J/^ of Moses ! If this speech was a fair 
specimen of those off'ered to the Swedish Parlia- 
ment, that august body is to be pitied. The cap- 
tain replied in a few modest and hearty words, 
and a round of toasts in three or four languages, 



THE RETURN VOYAGE. 179 



ending in the old Scandinavian ".%/<///" which 
to Enghsh ears is more suggestive of death than 
of festivity. Then followed compliments to the 
"orator of the day," the ship, and the officers; 
and when we all went on deck to sip our cafe noir, 
and to watch the waning and waxing of our last 
nocturne in northern waters, a final resolution was 
proposed, namely, "Never, never to sail on any 
ocean but the Arctic, or in any ship hut the 
Capella, Iveson, master. '' 

Our tour ended pracncally when we landed at 
Trondhjem ; and it was not without a tinge of re- 
gret that we obeyed the imperious mandate of the 
locomotive, and found ourselves, after one night's 
ride through charming scenery, at Christiania, en 
route for Sweden. 

We were leaving much unseen, especially Ber- 
gen, quaintest of the three cities ; the eminently 
picturesque fiords in its vicinity, and the very 
primitive Telemarken district on the post-road 



l8o NORWAY NIGHTS. 

thence to Christiania. Pleasures, however, must 
be economized, not exhausted : enough — for the 
moment — of Norway summer nights ; but their 
unique and tender beauty w^ill rest on our memo- 
ries with the vivid hues of an after-glow on snow- 
crowned mountain-heights. 



CHAPTER X. 

SWEDEN. 
{Par Parenthcse.) 

SWEDEN is to most travellers a parenthesis 
between Norway and Russia, comprised of 
Stockholm and the Dalsland and Gotha canals. 
The latter form so pleasing a feature that it is cer- 
tainly unwise to fly by rail to the capital without 
allowing an added thirty hours for the sake of see- 
ing these celebrated water-routes which are justly 
the pride of the country. We left Christiania by 
rail at 7 a.m., had a fine view of the city, its hills 
and fiord, on starting, and after six or seven hours 
through a fertile and pretty but not impressive 
region we arrived at Ed, whence five minutes on 
a local train brought us to the waiting steamer on 



l82 JVOJ^IVAV NIGHTS. 



the Dalsland Canal — a Lilliputian craft only six- 
teen feet broad, clean and comfortable enough for 
our voyage, if such it may be called, of twenty-four 
hours. We were the only passengers, except an 
occasional peasant or two on and off, and the 
captain, who spoke tolerable English, was assid- 
uous in his efforts to entertain and instruct us ; 
and so, as the sleepy little steamer puffed gently 
through the water, we subsided into a lotus-eat- 
ing dream of canal ghding into lake, and lake 
into canal, of pauses at the numerous locks, de- 
scent between ponderous stone walls, and then a 
rush of waters and we were off again — always 
past wooded shores overhanging trees, lovely 
islands, and as unlike as possible most canals, 
except some of those in Holland. The Dalsland 
unites several beautiful lakes between Lake 
Wenner and Norway, and as they rise to different' 
heights, making the sum total about three hun- 
dred feet, the locks are many. We often walked 



SWEDEN. 183 

from one to another, gathered scant raspberries, 
nld roses galore, hUes of the valley, the flower of 
Baldur the Beautiful, and pale little pansies which 
in Scandinavian legends are called the Devil's 
flowers, as the magpie is still the Devil's bird. 

Everything that lives, plant or animal, was en- 
dowed by those old Goths, even more than by the 
Greeks, with moral attributes, good or evil. It 
was only by an arrow made from the mistletoe, 
which has no individual existence, that Baldur 
was killed by his enemy Asgaard, all things that 
grow and live having sworn to the goddess Freya 
that they would not lend themselves to the purpose. 
Our steamer, for some inscrutable reason, 
stopped during the night at a place called Bil- 
lingsfors, where passengers are furnished with beds 
on shore when the resources of the boat are 
exhausted. It boasts only four cabins, with one 
bed in each — a penitential pallet, as unrelenting 
as that of a Camaldoli monk. The finest point 



184 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



on the route is at Hafverud, where, owing to 
some local difficulty of rock and soil, an aque- 
duct was constructed over which the boat passes, 
presenting a unique spectacle from the shore be- 
low. Although this canal is well worth seeing, 
it must be admitted that its scenery is tame and 
monotonous after the fiords and mountain-ranges 
of Norway. It were better if possible to visit 
Sweden first. We left the steamer at Kopmanna- 
bro, where we took the rail to Trollhatten, occupy- 
ing two to three hours. 

At the hotel restaurant here we ate our first 
Swedish dinner, somewhat unique in appoint- 
ment at the railway stations and ordinary inns. 
The table was nearly covered with from a dozen 
to twenty ' ' appetizers. " or small dishes of as 
many varieties of salt and smoked fish, sausages, 
and pickled vegetables, amid which brandy and 
liqueurs were conspicuous. The hot dishes were 
on another table, from which we helped ourselves; 



SWEDEN. 185 

and when we paid the account, we made our own 
statement of the items, the correctness of w^hich 
was unquestioned. The fruit of the season was 
wild mountain strawberries, which were abundant 
and good. 

Half an hour's drive took us to Trollhatten 
Falls, which are considered even tiner than those 
at Schaffhausen, and on our way we stopped to 
see the remarkable locks of the Gotha Canal, a 
great triumph of engineering skill when they were 
cut, but probably surpassed by the science of our 
day. It was early in the fifteenth century that the 
problem was first presented of uniting the east and 
west coasts through the numerous intervening 
lakes and rivers, and thus making an island of the 
southern part of Sweden. The cataracts and 
rocks proved too formidable for the engineers of 
that period. Several subsequent attempts were 
made, which served the purpose tolerably well, 
but the fait accompli was due to Ericsson, who 




Trollhatten Falls. 



SWEDEN. 187 

added several new and larger locks for the trans- 
f)ort of vessels from the North Sea to Lake Wen- 
ner by a watery staircase one hundred and forty- 
four feet above the sea. The locks, which are cut 
through solid rock and overshadowed by trees, 
are as picturesque as practical. 

The Falls of Trollhatten far surpass in breadth 
all cataracts to be seen in Norway, as they are 
an outlet from one of the largest lakes in Europe ; 
they are six in number within a hundred and fifty 
yards, and the effect is of force rather than of 
grandeur, as the enormous volume of water is 
thwarted and fretted by great masses of rocks and 
islands in the middle of the stream. In fact they 
form a terrific whirl and roar of speed, which 
tosses its white foam high in air and deserves 
all the adjectives that describe ' ' how the water 
comes down from Lodore, " until thev subside into 
a flow of crested rapids. A fine abiding-place 
was this for all that fanciful race of wood and 



1 88 NORWAY NIGHTS. 



water spirits who were as capricious as the ele- 
ments which they personated — the Grims, spirits 
of the cataracts ; the Haafmen, people of the sea ; 
the Stromkarls, deities of the rivers. 

The old Swedes are said to have been even more 
fanciful than the Norwegians : one of the most 
poetic ideas was that elves and trees were identi- 
cal — trees by day, elves by night ; when enemies 
invaded their territory, battalions of birch and 
aspens marched out in solid phalanx to attack 
them, but with the dawn of day marched back 
again and resumed their vegetable immobility. 
That these superstitions were actual motors in 
their lives is proved by the fact that in the state 
papers of Sweden records still exist of trials and 
condemnations of men and women for witchcraft, 
more legalized than the spasmodic crusades against 
Anglo-Saxon witches at about the same period. 
One of the many legends that cluster around 
Trollhatten Falls is that of a young girl who was 



SWEDEN. 189 

imprisoned in a neighboring cavern inhabited by 
brigands, and threatened with some awful death 
if she revealed their hiding-place or attempted to 
escape. On a Christmas night, when the ground 
was white with snow, she obtained leave to go out 
for a bundle of straw, which she dropped blade 
by blade on her return, and thus disclosed the se- 
cret of the cavern, and led to the capture and exe- 
cution of the robbers. 

The custom of putting bells on cows doubtless 
originated in Scandinavia, where they were first 
employed as a defence against the Trolls, or 
spirits of the woods, who were believed to milk 
the animals at night unless warned away by the 
tintinnabulation. 

The train from Gotheburg took us on at 8 p. m. , 
and after fourteen hours of that passive exercise 
which goes by the name of sleep in a railway-car- 
riage we found ourselves delightfully comfortable in 
the Grand Hotel at Stockholm. Breakfast was as 



190 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

welcome as were our luxurious rooms, for the res- 
taurant on the road afforded nothing but bread 
and the cruelty of " appetizers," which create a 
want without supplying it. Travel certainly owes 
many of its pleasures to contrast. We were 
charmed with even the first appearance of Stock- 
holm. It is certainly the most picturesquely situ- 
ated of all European cities, as it is built on several 
islands in Lake Malar, and also has a harbor on 
an arm of the Baltic. In these bright waters ply 
active little steamers, large vessels produce-laden, 
white-winged skiffs, and tiny row-boats, in endless 
number and variety. Handsome bridges, many 
broad, regular streets, substantial buildings, and, 
dominating almost every part of the city, the dig- 
nified royal palace, complete the picture. The 
"Venice of the North," as of course it is dubbed, 
bears not the slightest resemblance to the Venice 
of the South, except that they are both built on 
islands connected by bridges. The style of archi- 



SWEDE X. 



191 



lecture, the aspect of the people, the atmosphere, 
and the fashion of the water-craft are far as the 
antipodes asunder. 




Swedish Peasant and Baby. 



We passed a week at Stockholm with great 
enjoyment, heightened l)y the arrival of friendly 
companions of Capclla memory, and we could 



192 JVOJ^lVAV NIGHTS. 



have lingered a memth or two without weari- 
ness ; for, after due attention to whatever is 
characteristic and historical, there is endless 
amusement in steamer excursions, to charming 
suburbs and gay, handsome gardens echoing with 
good music. It is, in fact, the only enjoyable sum- 
mer city in Europe, and the air is irreproachable. 
The mediaeval castle of Gripsholm is not far off, 
filled with furniture and tapestry that would bieak 
the heart of a covetous collector ; and a day or 
two might well be spent at Upsala, the intellectual 
centre of Sweden, as it once was the stronghold 
of Scandinavian paganism. Our only regret 
here, as elsewhere, was the necessity for post- 
poning to the shadowv by-and-by many such 
temptations. 

On one of those small, neat steamers that ply 
to and from the island of Drottningholm we met, 
one day, a distinguished gentleman whose cour- 
teous attentions during our stav in Stockholm 



SWEDEN. 193 



gave us much information and enjoyment — one of 
those happily-attuned mortals whose wealth of 
facts and fancies finds equally facile expression in 
a dozen different languages. He pioneered us 
through the mazes of the park, which is a modest 
copy of Versailles adorned with sculptures in mar- 
ble and bronze, to a Chinese toy of a palace, built 
and furnished throughout with Celestial handicraft 
as a surprise to a royal lady on her birthday. Ad- 
joining this is a small building called the dining- 
room, where some sovereign of mechanical turn 
constructed a table that slides through the floor, 
and is served with successive courses without appa- 
rent agency. The large palace of Drottningholm, 
which is an occasional residence, contains the 
usual fine furniture, porcelain, and pictures, under 
watch and ward of uncommonly civil custodians. 
The principal attraction is a ball-room surrounded 
on all sides by a distinguished corps of Swedish 
and foreign monarchs in their respective uniforms. 



194 NOI?WAV NIGHTS. 

The excursion to Drottningholm is very charming 
on a summer evening, when a fihn of gold is spread 
over verdant shores, white villas embowered in sil- 
very birches, flying boats, and calm blue waters. 
On our return our friend proposed the ascent of an 
immense elevator, whence the whole map — of city, 
islands, Lake Malar and the Baltic — photographed 
itself on memory. It was a generous convulsion 
of nature that bestowed upon this sheet of water 
more than twelve hundred islands, in every stage 
of fertihty from barren rocks and primeval forests 
to high cultivation. 

The royal palace, an unusually dignified and 
massive structure, stands on a rocky eminence, and 
commands fine views of sea and land. Of course 
we paid the usual visit to the interior ; but as state 
apartments repeat themselves in all royal resi- 
dences (outside of Russia), when a tourist has 
promenaded over a few hundred polished floors 
and has glanced at several thousand gilded chairs, 



SWEDEN. 195 

mosaic tables, porcelain vases, and the like, under 
the vigilant eyes of polyglot ciceroni, he is ready 
to register a vow of disdainful and eternal import, 
which if broken must at least be unrecorded in 
the breach. Therefore I limit all description of 
the Stockholm palace to the private apartments of 
the family, which are worth noting because they 
are as unpretentious and homelike as those of 
any private citizen, graced, as usual, by the refine- 
ments of books, photographs, paintings, hand- 
worked cushions, and various pretty but inexpen- 
sive knick-knacks. To the very simple apartment 
of one of the princes is attached his work-room, 
which contains several pieces of mechanism from 
his own hand. On this side of the IMuscovite 
frontier the divinity that doth hedge a king clips 
its foliage every decade more nearl}- to the popular 
level. 

The National Museum is a handsome edifice 
with a portal of green marble, surmounted by 



196 NO/?lVAV NIGHTS. 

medallion portraits of Swedish artists. Colossal 
marble statues of Odin, Thor, and Baldur guard 
the vestibule ; outside is a highly-commended 
group in bronze of two combatants in a ''girdle- 
duel " — a tour de foi'ce of sculpture which might 
better have spent itself on a less ghastly subject. 
The principal attraction of the museum is the ex- 
tremely rich ethnographical collection, which be- 
gins at prehistoric flint and bronze periods. The 
native gold ornaments of the Runic age are par- 
ticularly tasteful, and often refined in decoration. 
Very interesting also are the implements and fur- 
niture of the three past centuries, arranged to- 
gether according to their respectiv^e dates. The 
gallery of antique and modern sculpture boasts of 
one antique treasure in the "Sleeping Endymion, " 
a life-size statue which was found in Adrian's villa 
and purchased by the art-loving king, Gustavus III. 
The sculptors of Sweden take higher rank than 
its painters, but it is to be regretted that they 



SWEDEN. 197 

should not perpetuate the weird grandeur of 
Scandinavian heroes and deities instead of feebly 
repeating the classic and worn-out gods and god- 
desses of the Mediterranean. A nude Venus and 
a ^•ine-wreathed Bacchus on the shores of the 
Baltic are as incongruous with the climate and 
traditions of their present habitat as the obelisk of 
Rameses on the banks <>f the Hudson. 

The room dedicated to Dutch and Flemish 
painters })resents many admirable specimens of 
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Teniers, and others ; but 
on the whole this art-treasury is rather mediocre, 
especially in the Italian department. The modern 
Scandinavian collection offers more of interest ; 
but as the artists study principally in German 
schools, thev have no distinctive national style. 
^ There is one large canvas on which Tiderman 

y represents one of those fanatical preachers often 
found in Norway who portray the "terrors of the 
law" with the impassioned fury of the old Puri- 



198 JVOJ?WAV NIGHTS. 

tans, and with the same eifect on the audience ; 
women fall fainting to the floor, and even men 
are spell-bound with fear. The picture is highly 
realistic in variety of feature and expression. More 
attractive, however, are the cottage-interiors and 
portraits of the Swedish artist Amalia Lindegren, 
whose peasant-children have the grace and inno- 
cence of Arcadia under their homelv o;-arb. 

The shops of Stockholm are not beguiling ; old 
silver at ' ' Hammei's, " Dalecarlian costumes and 
excellent colored photographs of peasants, were 
our only temptations. Theatres were closed for the 
summer ; but there was good music in open-air 
concerts, especially at the Djargarden, an ex- 
tensive park reached either by boat or train, where 
orderly crowds flock every pleasant evening ; and 
we have memories of a gay little dinner there 
with tourist friends in the veranda of the restau- 
rant, with echoes of Wagner and Strauss in the 
evening air, sunshine gilding the trees, rippling 



SWEDEN. 199 

laughter, and of course the all-enveloping blue in- 
cense, and aroma of the "plant divine, of rarest 
virtue. " 

It is superfluous to say that the Swedes have 
a national reputation for courtesy and hospi- 
tality, as well as for the sterling virtues of the Nor- 
wegians. We could not ex- 
pect, in a mere vol d'oiseau 
between two seas, to have any 
personal experience of this ,. 
agreeable fact ; but in streets 
and shops their politeness of ' \ 

manner was noticeable. They 

Swedish Costume. 
are a better -looking people 

than their neighbors on either side, though fair hair 

and serene blue eyes are not universal ornaments. 

We saw many Dalecarlian women in the streets 

in their becoming costume, which consists of 

full white sleeves, colored bodice fastened with 

silver or gilded chains and profuse ornaments. 




200 JVOJ^IVAV NIGHTS. 

short dark skirts, a high, close-fitting woollen cap, 
and red stockings. They are conservative in 
dress, like the people of the Telemarken province 
of Norway, hard workers, and don their costumes 
as every-day clothing, not merely to pose in like 
the Tyrolese and Romans. In the Moosebacke 
quarter, the ''Moses Hill," stands the picturesque 
red-brick church of the Riddaesholm with its 
tall perforated iron spire — a Walhalla of fame 
where repose in melancholy state kings and nobles 
of the Seraphim order. Its bell, called the Sera- 
phim, never rings, nor are services performed, ex- 
cept for a funeral pageant. Innumerable flags of 
various countries and colors droop from monu- 
ments and armorial bearings which line the interior 
walls, in the conventional style that must continue 
until, in the development of higher faith, men de- 
vise some more cheerful form of commemoration. 
When our bright and busy week in Stockholm 
had reached its close, we all felt that Fate might do 



SWEDEN. 20 1 

something much more displeasing than to send 
us back some future day to that charming sum- 
mer city. We said farewell over the "beaker's 
brim" to our courteous Swedish friend, and, with 
passports ''vised" by the Russian consul, em- 
barked on the steamer Constatitin for the land of 
the Tsar. 



CHAPTER XI. 

FINLAND. 

{An Episode^ 

AS we Steamed, about 6 o'clock p.m., out of 
the harbor where sits on her throne of isl- 
ands the Queen of the Baltic, the fair city pre- 
sented a lovely picture : spires, roofs, and the 
conspicuous royal palace gleamed in gold ; white 
suburban villas made points of light in wooded 
headlands ; broad masses of trees formed contrast- 
ing shadows ; half-furled sails and tall masts senti- 
nelled the shining waters. Floating onwards, the 
glittering details gradually concentrated into a 
point of unity which soon was lost to sight on 
the misty horizon. A few hours later the sun also 
quenched his fires in the sea, but left a promise 



FINLAND. 203 



for the morrow in those silvery gradations of neb- 
ulous Hght which in northern skies intervene be- 
tween his parting and his return. The Baltic, 
like the Mediterranean, has no tides, is neither 
very deep nor very salt, and, though capable of 
being roused to passion, is a better disposed ocean 
than some of its neighbors. 

With the exception of a few hours in open sea 
the first night, our picturesque and tortuous 
track ran between an archipelago of islands on 
the Finnish coast, many of which are bare red- 
granite rocks or heaps of stones abraded by un- 
ceasing waves. The voyage to St. Petersburg 
occupies three nights, the intervening days being 
pleasantly diversified by halts at Abo, the old capi- 
tal of Finland, and at Helsingfors, the new capi- 
tal. The Conslafttm is one of the best steamers 
on the Swedish line ; the cabins are comfortable, 
— and with twenty-one different "appetizers" at 
every meal, what more could be desired } 



204 JVO/dM^'AV NIGHTS. 

Our trio had now enlarged itself to a quartet, 
and gained the only element it lacked by the ad- 
dition of a young American, whose personal 
characteristics and previous acquaintance with St. 
Petersburg completed the measure of our enjoy- 
ment. Ladies can travel alone through the high- 
ways of Russia with safety and comfort, but the 
"right sort of man" is undeniably an acquisition. 
Our preux chevalier was the right sort of man. 
The passengers were all Swedes, Finns, and Rus- 
sians — among the latter a lady, who was so con- 
genial, as well so kindly helpful to us in St. Peters- 
burg, that our accidental acquaintance has passed 
into friendly permanence. 

We arrived at Abo (pronounced Obo) the 
morning after leaving Stockholm. An ancient ca- 
thedral and a more ancient castle, both of some 
historical interest, stand prominently on the har- 
bor ; and on a high hill in the town is an obser- 
vatory well known to scientists. 



FINLAND. 205 

Finland has always occupied the undesirable 
position of a small country between two large 
ones, tossed like a ball back and forth, until it 
finally was grasped by the talons of the double- 
headed eagle, where it remains, under the title of 
Grand Duchy. It retains its religious and consti- 
tutional privileges — under bit and bridle, however, 
of imperial representatives. It is a watery do- 
main brimming over with fiords, lakes, and 
swamps, even its name being derived fromy^w, or 
morass. With grasping neighbors on either side, 
pestilence, fires, and famine at various periods, and 
deadly quarrels among its early tribes, it has had 
from the beginning a hard struggle for existence. 
Since the transferrence of the capital to Helsingfors 

o 

Abo is a deserted village : a few vessels lie idly in 
the harbor ; one or two small hotels wait idly on 
the quay. In the broad, silent streets, the houses, 
built of wood, are only one story high and very 
far apart, their doorways level with the ground. 



2o6 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

There is only one thing to be seen — the uncouth 
Gothic cathedral ; and unless one is in a mood for 
horrors it may better be avoided, for in the crypt 
the dead stand dressed in the garb of the living, 
as they do in the ghastly church of the Capucines 
at Rome and the cemetery at Palermo. 

By the captain's advice we decided on a drive 
to the park of Runsala, four or five miles away, 
which would at least take us to fresh fields and 
pastures new. The national "droschkies" are 
small, narrow, dingy one-horse vehicles which 
possess unlimited capacity for jolt and rattle ; are 
started at full gallop, and continued at as breathless 
a pace as if pursued by a pack of wolves. Re- 
monstrance was hopeless, for the drivers talked 
Finnish, and we did not ; and moreover it is the 
national pace. However, the park was reached 
without accident ; and though it has no merit of 
cultivation, it afi"ords pretty views and shaded 
walks. The restaurant dinner served on the ve- 



FINLAND. 207 



randa was rather eccentric in quality and condi- 
ment ; but on the whole this excursion is more 
entertaining than to sit idly on the deck while the 
steamer pauses in the harbor. 

Helsingfors, where we stopped the following 

o 

day, has been a vampire to Abo and sucked its very 
life-blood — the university, the population, the seat 
of government. The approach is very imposing 
from the sea, for it is guarded by the fortress of 
Sveaborg, which extends over seven islands ; on 
the shore opposite stands a large and handsome 
Russian cathedral with conspicuous white dome 
and gilded spire. The streets are broad, with 
much parade of pompous architecture of no dis- 
tinctive character, relieved by avenues of trees and 
pleasant walks. As we had seven or eight hours 
to while away on shore, we first turned our steps to 
the crowded market in an open square, where a 
motley crowd, roughly clothed, bought and sold 
such quantities of meat and fish as precluded all 



2o8 NORWAY NIGHTS. 

ideas of famine in the land, apart from the cart- 
loads of coarse black bread which looked less 
like the staff of life than its cudgel. 

We had sometimes wished we might find some 
locality not yet penetrated by the ubiquitous 
''articles de fantaisie' of Paris — and we did find 
it in Norway ; but here in Finland it was a tire- 
some reminder of the ever-decreasing size of this 
petty planet to be offered by a peasant-woman in 
the market little bottles of Atkinson's perfumes ! 
And then we said, "There will be no escape 
from ' high civilization ' until we go to the fair at 
Nijni Novgorod. " After a walk to the cathedral, 
and much admiration of the fine paintings in its 
gilded Ikonostas, we drove to the very pretty Bruns- 
park, a gay summer resort with the usual accom- 
paniments of restaurant, music, and open-air 
theatre. Our dinner was supplemented by profuse 
and delicious strawberries, and we wandered under 
the trees until it was time to return to the steamer. 



FINLAND. 209 



Then we conned till a late hour our Russian 
phrase-book, and mounted the numeral pyramid 
from " oden" to "dvatzat, " "tritsat, " "sorok," 
and " sto/' under the spur of to-morrow's require- 
ments. The numbers and a few phrases are es- 
sential in Russia, as elsewhere, unless one is will- 
ing to be buttoned every instant to a valet de place. 

Even the guide-books fail to invest Finland 
with sparkling interest, archaeological or historic ; 
one infers that, like Fingal's cave and many other 
places, it may be worth seeing, but is not worth 
going to see, as all its characteristics, moral and 
material, are either semi-Swedish or semi-Russ. 
It finds favor with sporting fishermen, and its cata- 
racts and most of its lakes tempt artists, though its 
trees are stunted and the atmosphere is generally 
cold and dull. However, as a geographical lesson 
the southern shore breaks very pleasantly the sum- 
mer traversee to St. Petersburg. 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 




Russian Church. 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 



CHAPTER I 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



DURING the past few years so many lorg- 
nons and field-glasses have been levelled at 
Russia with curiosity and criticism ; so many 
native and foreign wTiters have dramatically pic- 
tured its past, present, and prospective story, that 
the entire country is now supposed to stand under 
the blaze of electric light, with two important ex- 
ceptions — the plans of the Nihilists and the pro- 
jects of the Czar. Our innocent Russian days 
were quite undisturbed by these problems : we 
merely glanced over the glittering surface like 



214 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



birds briefly perched on a telegraph-wire ; we were 
thorough optimists, and entered into all the novel- 
ties of sight and sound with hearty satisfaction. 
Therefore I do not pretend to add another can- 
vas to the already crowded gallery ; I merely trace 
an outline and throw in a few dashes of * ' local 
color. "' 

The approach to St. Petersburg on a fine sum- 
mer morning owes its exceptional attraction to 
art rather than to nature. There are no rugged 
shore-rocks resonant to the sea ; no mountains in 
the distance ; no verdant hills to grace the fore- 
ground : but the level monotone of earth and sky 
is broken by many islands and several fortresses 
on either side, chief of which latter is Cronstadt, 
with walls of solid granite ten feet thick. It domi- 
nates a forest of tall masts of men-of-war bearing 
flags of every color, but principally of the national 
black and yellow. Then appear on the smooth- 
water surface dark contrasting masses of merchant- 



ST. PETERSBURG. 215 



ships, of yachts flying before the wind, of heavily 
laden steam-tugs ; and as our vessel advances, a 
star shines on the horizon which grows in magni- 
tude, until it reveals itself as the great gilded 
dome of the cathedral of St. Isaac. Gradually 
the sky - outline is broken by other burnished 
domes, by pale green domes studded with stars 
of gold, by glittering crosses and arrows of light, 
which compose the tiara of the city of the Tsar. 

Yet a little farther onward, and massive granite 
quays, stately palaces, countless cupolas, lofty 
watch-towers, and monoliths of red granite proudly 
pose upon the delta formed by the broad silvery 
Neva and its outspread branches. Whether we 
wall or not, this marvellous city which sprung in 
a brief historic day from an almost arctic swamp 
compels admiration, as a tour de force if nothing 
more. ♦ 

As we landed at the quay of the custom-house, 
vioujiks with long hair and russet beards trans- 



2l6 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



ferred our luggage to a crowded platform, where 
our passports were demanded and our impedi- 
menta very thoroughly scrutinized by civil officers 
who spoke both French and German. As soon 
as it was decided that we were innocent of evil 
intent towards ''la Sainte Russie," we were con- 
ducted to the omnibus of the Hotel de I'Europe, 
to which wx had written for rooms. We had a 
long drive through some of the finest parts of the 
city, and a glimpse of the great square on which 
stand the palace of the Admiralty, the Winter 
Palace, St. Isaac's Cathedral, and the colossal 
bronze statue of Peter the Great, before we turned 
into the celebrated Nevski Prospekt, and thence 
came by a few steps to our hotel. 

We found excellent quarters in readiness for us ; 
but the courteous manager, in pursuance of the 
usual Russian fashion of offering a large choice 
of rooms, pioneered us over miles of corridors ; for 
this Gostinmtza, like the Hotel du Louvre in 



ST. PETERSBURG. 217 

Paris, covers an enormous space. We decided 
on the luxurious suite he had assigned us, and 
settled down to domesticity under the patronage 
of the saints whose images appear unobtrusively 
on the walls of every Russian room. Like the 
gods of ancient Greece, the pictured saints are 
more numerous than the people ; no cook would 
remain an hour in a house where there was not 
one in the kitchen. The servants who attended 
us, however, were Germans ; and there are at 
least two English valets de place, one of whom, 
named Alexander, we can especially commend. 
We expected to find Russian vapor-baths in per- 
fection, but were assured that they are by no 
means so well appointed as in Paris or New York, 
at least for ladies. 

After our luncheon, in which strawberries, 
melons, and tchai slamonum — tea with thin slices of 
lemon — pleasantly figured, we started with the 
eagerness of children for that first general orienta- 



2t8 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 



tion which defines the chaos of a new city. We 
noticed at once the dress of the coachmen, which 




Russian Coachman. 



consists of a dark-blue woollen caftan that extends 
to the feet ; it is plain over the shoulders, and 
crosses from right to left with large filigree silver 



ST. PETERSBURG. 219 

buttons, and five more on the left side behind ; 
the skirt falls in full plaits, especially at the back, 
and a belt somewhat like the border of a cashmere 
shawl passes round the waist. A flat cloth cap, 
larger above than below, and high boots over the 
trousers, which are not visible, complete the cos- 
tume. The drivers hold one rein in each hand, 
and guide the horses by the voice rather than the 
whip. 

The first thing that strikes one in St. Peters- 
burg is the prodigality of space and gigantic 
dimensions of the streets, w^hich give to even four- 
storied houses an appearance of being built low. 
The right angles are as rigid as the squares of a 
chess-board ; there are no narrow, crooked lanes 
as in other European cities. The pavements are 
generally bad, owing to the marshy subsoil ; but 
this is less important, because half the year they 
are excellently paved with snow. The great 01 
Bolshaya Neva River passes through the centre, 



220 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



and with its branch the Uttle or Malaya Neva forms 
islands, on which other portions are built. Two 
hundred years ago this river was unknown except 
to Finnish huntsmen in the untrodden forests 
through which it flows from Lake Onega to the 
bay of Finland. It is as broad as the Rhine at 
Cologne ; its clear, blue waters are not only a 
beautiful feature, but they supply the wants of the 
city. At the same time they are a perpetual 
menace, for, though guarded by massive granite 
embankments, they are only two feet below the 
level of the streets ; and when in the spring the 
north wind blows a gale, from the narrow part of 
the bay the waters of the Neva are forced back, 
and, if the ice happens to be breaking up at the 
same time, inundations are inevitable. There- 
fore, when warning guns are heard from the fort- 
ress, those who live in cellars and basements look 
for safe shelter, and sentries in their boxes are 
provided for. Numerous handsome bridges span 



ST. PETERSBURG. 221 

the waters, which are animated by fleets of row- 
boats, yachts, and commercial vessels. In winter 
these liquid roads are solidly frozen, and sledges 
supplant the sails. 

Previous to our journey hither many sugges- 
tions had been offered that winter is par excel- 
lence the time to visit this hyperborean capital ; 
but the fact is that, like the duplicate shield which 
was gold on one side and silver on the other, St. 
Petersburg has two totally different aspects. 
Most alluring we found it in summer, with its 
verdant parks, blue waters, green and golden 
domes, and soft, diaphanous nights ; and with 
such generosity of space and air that in even the 
warmth of July one is not oppressed as in other 
cities. We drove up and down the Nevski Pros- 
pekt, which corresponds as an artery of fashiona- 
ble commerce with the Alcala in Madrid, Rue de 
Rivoli in Paris, and Regent's Street in London, 
but is a melange of shops, palaces, monuments, 



2 22 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

and churches far more imposing than either. 
The architecture is not distinctive in any part 
of the city. Neither Peter the Great nor his 
successors could create a new structural art : 
they united classic and Renaissance forms with 
Byzantine domes and decorations. Critics have 
called it a city of architectural shams, and com- 
plain that porticos and pillars are of plaster- 
covered brick, fa9ades are flat, and balconies 
inconsistent with an arctic climate. But, on 
the other hand, nowhere else are found such 
superb or abundant monoliths as those of the 
Finland red granite, which give color and maj- 
esty to churches and palaces. The one erected 
to Alexander I. near the Winter Palace is con- 
sidered the greatest of modern times — a single 
shaft eighty-four feet high, beautifully polished, 
surmounted by a gilded angel bearing a cross ; 
the base and pedestal, twenty-five feet high, of the 
same material. 



ST. PETERSBURG. 223 



The houses are built in apartments which ap- 
parently consist of a series of salons, as they are 
furnished with luxurious couches converted into 
beds at night. The ladies' dresses are kept 
folded in the boxes in which they come from 
Paris, and other accessories of the toilet are 
removed from sight ; so that the salons are al- 
ways en grande tenuc, and the restful privacy of a 
pretty sleeping-room, so dear to the Anglo-Saxon 
heart, is an unappreciated luxury. 

Many of the shops are painted on the outside 
with representations of their wares : vividly- 
colored fruits and vegetables, bunches of grapes 
and flasks of wine, pianos, ladies' cloaks sur- 
mounted by hats, and many other temptations 
appeal Lo those who are unable to read. De- 
cidedly, we were of that illiterate class. We 
had pored over those perplexing letters until we 
could pronounce the words with tolerable cor- 
rectness : but it was another thing to translate them. 



2 24 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



At first sight the signs suggest an alphabetical 
cyclone ; but their large ornate characters at a 
Httle distance look like a sculptured frieze of gold 
on ground of red or blue. 

It was not the season for parade of equipages, 
and we saw none that were distinctive. The un- 
comfortable but convenient little droschkies flew 
about in swarms, for there are few pedestrians in 
this city of magnificent distances. Here and there 
were Cossack soldiers in long blue coats or 
caftans and high white, red, or blue caps edged 
with sheepskin, and armed with swords, poniards, 
pistols, and rifles ; and everywhere moujiks, in red 
or blue shirts, belted round the waist, extending 
below the short loose jacket, and loose trousers 
thrust into big boots. Apropos is a story, se 
non vero, ben irovato, cited in recent journals, of 
a reply made by Bismarck to Lord Dufl'erin, who 
had asked his opinion of the Russian character : 
'' My dear lord, the Russian is a very good 



ST. PETERSBURG. 



225 



fellow until he tucks in his shirt" — a caustic com- 
ment quite characteristic of the Premier. 




Cossack Officer. 



I should put in a deferential protest against his 
sweeping criticism : the Russians who diffuse 



2 26 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



themselves through various countries have the 
reputation of being very charming people — viva- 
cious, friendly, hospitable, highly intelligent and 
accomplished, and some, of my own intimate ac- 
quaintance, are as true-hearted and good as the 
world affords. 

THE SHOPS. 

We noticed many little stalls for the sale of 
pictured saints, holy oil and water ; boxes for 
sacred offerings at the corners of the streets, on 
bridges, at the exits of markets; and reverent cross- 
ings and prostrations before frequent shrines of 
prayer. In all this was a touch of the Orient ; 
but we wxre not yet beyond the intrusion of 
French signs and German merchandise. The 
road that leads beyond these too-familiar objects 
is far away from St. Petersburg. But we did 
visit shops which every feminine heart would 
appreciate ; one of Russian embroidered costumes, 



ST. PETERSBURG. 227 



towels and table-cloths, and also the exquisitely fine 
white goat's-wool shawls from Orenburg, made by 
hand firom threads of fairy texture. The finest of 
these shawls requires the work of two women for 
two years ; it was more gossamer than the finest 
thread lace, a mere mist from a summer cloud, 
and correspondingly fragile. One of the largest 
size, three yards square, we saw drawn through a 
finger-ring, and the fair owner intended to wear it 
at her wedding instead of the conventional tulle 
or Brussels lace. A similar shawl was presented 
to Patti on her last visit to Russia, and she wore 
it over a white-satin tunic. Even the inferior 
qualities that cost only eight or ten rubles are as 
soft as down. 

Another specialty is the silver-work, which far 
« exceeds in beauty, as well as in weight, that of 
other countries. The fabric of enamelled gold and 
silver gilt is beautiful enough to justify a com- 
pound fracture of the tenth commandment : it is 



2 28 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

covered with the very finest enamel of various col- 
ors, principally light blue and ruby, laid on with 
twisted threads of gold that would pass through 
a needle's eye. Jewel-caskets, toilet articles, 
sugar-bowls, spoons, etc., fill one shop exclusive- 
ly. This fine enamel is rather new, and therefore 
little known outside of Russia ; but even the older 
fabric on silver gilt is also beautiful, though not 
quite so delicate. The best shop is that of Ivan 
Petrovitch Chlebnekoff, on the Nevski Pros- 
pekt. 

The fur-shops are ruinously attractive, espe- 
cially the sable, which we had never seen so fine 
and dark. The London merchants declare that 
they procure some of the very best qualities ; but 
the Moscow dealers assured us that they never sell 
those outside of Russia. Sables are always expen- 
sive because so small a portion of the little animal 
is of the coveted dark color. The famous Potem- 
kin had a muff" which cost a thousand guineas. 



ST. PETERSBURG. 229 

Ordinary furs may be bought more reasonably 
here than elsewhere. 

There are several shops of Circassian embroi- 
deries, but we were advised to buy those in Mos- 
cow. As there are no Leghorn hats made in Leg- 
horn, and no Venetian blinds in Venice, so there 
IS no Russian leather in Russia; the raw material 
being exported to Germany, where it is manu- 
factured into the universal pocket-books and port- 
folios. There is a great two-storied bazaar, the 
Gostinnoi Dvor, which is stocked with all possi- 
ble articles for household use and old bric-a-brac 
shops, but very little that a traveller would desire 
except the Circassian and Caucasian shawls and 
sashes, better obtained in Moscow. It is, how- 
ever, all worth a visit of curiosity. 

A few pounds of the best tea is a desirable pur- 
chase; for, as it is brought overland through Siberia, 
the flavor is much more delicate than that which 
comes by sea. The yellow and the white, made 



230 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

from the first tiny buds of the plant, form a nerve- 
exciting beverage which should rarely be indulged 
in. It costs from four or five rubles to fifty a 
pound (a ruble being generally equivalent to sev- 
enty-five cents or three shillings sterling, but in 
the present state of Russian funds a third less). 
Tchai slamontmi is made from an inferior quality 
of leaf; but we found it very palatable — a harmless 
beverage, as universal as beer in Germany and vin 
ordinaire in France. 

THE CATHEDRAL. 

The world- renowned Cathedral of St. Isaac's 
stands conspicuously in a large open square, sur- 
rounded by several of the finest edifices and mon- 
uments in the city. A few words will recall the 
many descriptions given of it by clever writers. It 
is a Greek cross in form; the four ends are ter- 
minated by porticos which are reached by flights 
of red-granite steps ; above these stand stately pol- 



^•7; PETERSBURG. 



231 



ished columns of the same material, sixty feet 
high and seven in diameter, with bronze Corin- 
thian capitals. They support a massive frieze 
from which rises the dome of bronze overlaid with 
burnished gold, also sup[)orted by a circle of granite 




The Neva — The Bridge — St. Isaac's. 



pillars. From the centre, again, rises the rotunda, 
or lantern, a miniature repetition of the whole 
edifice, surmounted by a golden cross. Four 
smaller domes stand above each end of the arms 
of the cross and complete the harmony. Each 



232 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

flight of Steps as well as each column is formed of 
a single block of granite : all of them, as well as 
hundreds more in other churches and palaces, were 
conveyed from Finland on rollers, their weight 
being too great for wheels. The Tsars are as 
rich as were the Pharaohs in unlimited quarries 
of marble. 

Ponderous sculptured brouTie doors lead to the 
interior, where floor, walls, and supporting pillars 
are of polished marbles, verde antique. Sienna yel- 
low, porphyry, and jasper. Gilded angels of vari- 
ous sizes, pictures of Christ, the Virgin, and saints, 
ensconced in gilding and jewelled mosaics, gleam 
through a mystic twilight. Sculptures are for- 
bidden by the Greek Church, but the command 
against graven images is not supposed to extend 
to flat surfaces or bas-reliefs. The choir is raised 
a few feet above the nave, and separated from it 
by a balustrade of exquisite marbles. The gold 
Ikonostas, or screen, shuts off" the "holy of ho- 



ST. PETERSBURG. 233 

lies" by two massive silver doors ; in it are eight 
colossal pillars, six of malachite and two of lapis 
lazuli — not solid, however, but laid on iron, as no 
such solid blocks exist in these materials. Be- 
tween these pillars in the gilded screen are inserted 
mosaic pictures of saints. Many other beautiful 
pictures adorn the walls, all by Russian artists, 
and one exquisitely fine mosaic, representing a 
head of the Saviour, is studded with diamonds, 
the largest of which cost seven thousand pounds 
sterling. In fact, every available point is filled 
with mosaics or paintings — around the domes, the 
brackets for candles, as well as the walls. 

In connection with them I will relate an anec- 
dote hitherto unknown. A celebrated artist, presi- 
dent of one of the highest art-academies in Italy, 
was engaged to paint six pictures that now orna- 
ment the vault of one of the cupolas. One of the 
subjects selected was the Annunciation, and was 
enlivened by the presence of a host of little angels 



234 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

who floated in the upper air in the innocence of 
their conventional nudity. When the synod of 
priests visited the artist's studio to inspect the 
finished work, they admired everything except the 
undress of the infants, which they declared inad- 
missible. The artist protested, but in vain : the 
angels must conform to the regulations of relig- 
ious art or be excommunicated. Accordingly, on 
the next visit of the synod they appeared in full 
celestial millinery, with broad blue ribbons and 
shreds of vapory costume. The work was pro- 
nounced satisfactory ; the pictures were hung un- 
der the supervision of the artist, but before he 
left the church they had lost their worldly tissues 
and circulated again unencumbered around their 
invisible trapeze. He had painted their draperies 
in gouache, but, to carry out his own just ideas, 
he washed them off before elevating the pictures 
to the vaulted dome ; and the then distant critics 
were never the wiser ! 



ST. PETERSBURG. 235 



This superb church may well be considered the 
supreme effort of modern architecture : unlike all 
other great cathedrals, which were the crystalliza- 
tion of centuries, it was the work of only forty 
years, under command of the Emperor Nicholas, 
who did more than all his predecessors to beau- 
tify his capital. In order to secure the safety of 
the foundation, forests of piles were driven into 
the marshy ground on which it stands, followed 
1)\ great blocks of granite : and yet it gradually 
sinks. 

Through the kinchiess of the lad\ whose ac- 
quaintance we made on the Constantifi, we ob- 
tained privileged places within the choir, one Sun- 
day morning, during an important ceremonial. 
The superb teniie of the priests, the marvellous 
singing and the devoutness of the worshippers, 
made a profound impression on us all ; but 1 may 
better attempt to describe a similar and more elab- 
orate service in the Kazan cathedral, where also 



236 RUSSIAN BAYS. 

our friend conducted us. This edifice, also sup- 
ported on piles, is built in imitation of St. Peter's 
at Rome, with exterior colonnades like embracing 
arms. The interior is sumptuous, though less so 
than St. Isaac's, and the rich surfaces are broken 
by -flag-draped monuments and the keys of many 
fortresses hanging on the walls. Among the 
tombs is that of General Kutusof, erected on the 
spot where he knelt in prayer before setting out 
to meet Napoleon in 181 2. 

The service that we attended there was con- 
ducted by the metropt)litan bishop, one of the 
triad of bishops in the empire. Long before the 
hour, the vast interior was filled with a standing or 
kneeling crowd — for no seats are permitted in Rus- 
sian churches, except by special favor at some un- 
obtrusive point ; nor is the use of fans allowed. 
Preceded by Miss M., we took our places in the 
choir, and chairs were provided for us only a few 
feet from the doors of the Ikonostas ; thus we 



ST. PETERSBURG. 237 

had a full view of the entire scene. Each person 
on entering brought a taper and slowly ap- 
proached a shrine ; then he knelt, bowed his head 
to the marble pavement, and crossed himself re- 
peatedly ; he lighted his candle, and set it up in 
one of the large silver stands provided for that 
purpose. Again kneeling, he touched his head to 
the pavement and retired with face towards the 
altar, continuing his prostrations and crosses dur- 
ing the entire service. There are no inquisitive 
gazings around, and no beggars pausing in their 
prayers to ask alms ; but a fixed earnestness that 
evidently proceeds from deep religious feeling. 
Meanwhile the choristers, in white surplices with 
light-blue collars and cufts, took their places on 
each side of the Ikonostas : on this occasion the 
choirs of two cathedrals were engaged. Instru- 
mental music is forbidden in the Greek Church, 
but the old hymns are most wonderful ; many of 
them were brought long ago from Rome, but are 



238 RUSSIA A' DAYS. 



now forgotten there. Through the open doors of 
the Ikonostas we saw the altar blazing with light ; 
the priests, archimandrites, and deacons, twenty- 
four in all, in dazzling vestments of cloth of gold 
reaching to the feet, with chains and suspended 
crosses, far more graceful than those of Catholic 
priests, and more beautiful in quality. The dig- 
nity of the wearers is enhanced by their long, 
flowing, ringleted hair, parted in the middle of the 
forehead ; and with their patriarchal beards and 
refined Eastern features they might serve as mod- 
els for prophets and apostles. The Titianesque 
reddish-gold hair of some of them accorded well 
with the vestments. Some of the robes were dec- 
orated with jewels, especially the silver robe of the 
bishop, who also wore a high-crowned jewelled 
cap with a gold cross above it. He was a little 
old man, feeble with the weight of eighty-two 
}'ears, and required assistants on either side when 
he advanced to the ed^'e of the dais and returned 



S7\ PETERSBURG. 239 



many times to the altar, while he read aloud, 
prayed, knelt, and crossed himself, and again with 
a lighted symbolic candle in either hand blessed 
the kneeling people. 

The solos of the Litany were intoned by a dea- 
con whose hasso profunda of incredible power 
resounded like the notes of a great organ to the 
remotest end and all through the domes of the 
vast building. These voices are peculiar to Rus- 
sia ; they are sought for through distant provinces, 
and receive large remuneration. A very earnest 
and frequent refrain is "" Gospodimi pojuilui'' 
("Lord, have mercy on us"), in which choristers 
join, and prolong the last syllable like the sigh of 
an ^olian harp. The most solemn moment of all 
was when the priests, archimandrites, and deacons 
all retired within the sanctuary, the portals silently 
closed, and the people knelt during the transub- 
stantiation ; then the doors were thrown open, 
and the whole hierarchy, in their superb vestments, 



240 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



"gold in sunlight against gold in shadow," walked 
forth to the chanting and singing of the most 
perfect church-music I have ever heard ; deep as 
thunder, yet most harmonious in tone, the bass 
rose and poised on waves of grand crescendo, 
around which floated and fell the soft silvery ca- 
dence of the sopranos and intermediate parts. 

It is to the honor of the Greek Church that it 
has never been intolerant of other creeds, and al- 
lows public worship in every form. It has been 
said that "Toleration" Street would be an appro- 
priate title for the Nevski Prospekt from the num- 
ber of churches of various persuasions it contains. 

PALACES AND MUSEUMS. 

One of the most pleasant things to do in St. 
Petersburg is to visit the palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, 
a stately pleasure-dome decreed by Catherine the 
Great. We went by rail fifteen miles out to a 
village adjoining the park, where we obtained tick- 



Sr. PETERSBURG. 241 

ets of admission, and thence a carriage conveyed us 
through the extensive grounds to the palace. The 
facade is elaborately adorned with statues, carv- 
ings, and vases, which, with the pedestals and capi- 
tals of the columns, were originally covered with 
gold. In the course of a few years the rigors of 
winter made serious havoc with this decoration, 
and Murray says that the persons who repaired 
it offered the Empress fifty thousand pounds 
sterling for the fragments of gold-leaf, to which 
she disdainfully replied, '^ ye ne siiis pas dans 
I' usage de vendre mes vieilles hardes. "' There are 
no traces of this lavish ornamentation left except 
on the cupolas of the chapel, the interior of which 
is painted in bright blue and gold, displeasing to 
the eye. But the ingenuity of even that reckless 
age was taxed to the utmost in the long succes- 
sion of salons, all arranged as if for an immediate 
court pageant. Gold (not gilded) ceilings, silk- 
hung walls, floors of costliest inlaid woods in 



2 42 R USSIA lY da YS. 

graceful designs — one of polished ebony inlaid 
with figures of mother-of-pearl, and walls incrusted 
with lapis lazuli ; a Chinese room of choicest 
Celestial furniture : a banqueting-room with a dado 
nine feet high covered with plates of gold ; the 
walls of the chamber of Catherine the Great laid 
in fine porcelain tiles, and supported by pilasters of 
blue glass, with priceless rock-crystal chandeliers, 
articles oi vertu, tables and taszas of malachite and 
lapis lazuli, so profuse as to defy memory and re- 
cital. There are two ball-rooms, in each of which 
is a collection of the rarest porcelain vases placed 
in circular tiers which extend from floor to ceiling; 
the letter E, for Ekaterina, inscribed on each vase. 
The gem of all is the Amber Room. Its lofty 
walls are entirely covered with that exquisite 
material in architectural designs ; some of them 
represent the arms of Catherine united with those 
of Frederick the Great, by whom the amber was 
presented ; amber groups of figures rest upon an 



Sr. PETERSBURG. 243 



amber ground. Shreds of amber in beads and 
pipes convey no idea of the soft gleams of mellow 
light in this poetic room, which but for the realism 
of some of the designs would seem to have been 
stolen from a supernatural realm. It was the 
most unique object we saw in Russia. Even the 
chairs were of amber, with seats of pale-yellow 
brocade ; and a set of amber chessmen stood on 
an amber field. 

We were interested in the full-length portraits 
of the Romanoffs, all indicative of their character- 
istics. The portraits of Alexander I. and Alex- 
ander II. are particularly pleasing ; their com- 
manding figures and fine faces express the best 
qualities of the dynasty, without its faults. The 
artist who depicted the sensuous beauty of the in- 
tellectual, arrogant, unscrupulous Catherine 11,, 
who was not a Romanoif, took good care to put 
her evil traits in the background. 

The splendor of the state apartments finds 



244 J^ US SI AN DAYS. 



antithesis in the small, almost monastic rooms of 
that excellent monarch Alexander I., which are 
sacredly preserved precisely as he left them for 
a tour to his southern provinces, where death put 
an end to his beneficent reign. In one corner is a 
camp bedstead, on a table a few modest toilet 
appurtenances, a hand-mirror in a green morocco 
frame, brushes and comb of the simplest sort, 
an ordinary pocket-handkerchief, a worn and 
faded uniform. Very unostentatious also are the 
living-rooms in a small palace built for him in 
his youth, but occasionally occupied by the pres- 
ent imperial family. The high and mighty person- 
ages whose frequent fate it is 

"to be perked up in a glistening grief 
And wear a golden sorrow" 

are often pleased to relax their pose and become 
simple ladies and gentlemen. 

In this palace there is little furniture or decora- 



ST. PETERSBURG. 245 



tion of intrinsic value, and even trifles that woukl 
be banished from ordinary drawing-rooms as in- 
significant. But there are children's toys, photo- 
graphs, and portraits — not for show, but for family 
love ; and in a large hall is a high inclined plane 
of polished wood for the children to play at ''to- 
bogganing " within doors. The Emperor's writ- 
ing-table was like that of a man of business. In 
glass cases around one of the rooms are models 
of cavalry regiments, beautifully executed for the 
Emperor Nicholas, and many paintings of military 
manoeuvres. 

A fusillade of rain prevented us from any ex- 
tended walk or drive through the stately pleas- 
aunce in summer green, where are several charm- 
ing caprices, such as a Chinese village, a Dutch 
cow-house, artificial ruins, a fountain after Greuze's 
picture of "La Cruche cassee, '' and many others. 

The Arsenal of Tsarskoe-Selo is a superb col- 
lection of armor and antique standards amassed 



246 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

by many sovereigns ; prominent among them are 
two dazzling saddles, every part of which, together 
with the bridles, are covered with brilliants. 

Thence we drove to the village of Pavolsk, 
where there is another palace, and all sorts of 
picturesque adjuncts which approaching twilight 
prevented us from seeing. 

We dined at a fashionable restaurant there, to 
the music of an excellent orchestra. We were 
anxious to hear the National Hymn on its native 
heath, but never had an opportunity, because it 
is played only on special occasions and involves 
the ceremony of the whole audience standing 
through the performance. One of the dishes at 
our dinner was a good cabbage-soup, called sichi, 
served with sour cream ; another was rastigae, pat- 
ties of the isinglass and flesh of sturgeon ; also a 
very delicate "sweet,"' — something between jelly 
and ice. 

Whence the far-famed Hermitage derives its 



ST. PETERSBURG. 247 



name one fails in perceive on the face of it, for 
it is neither remote nor secluded ; as well might 
the Louvre be called a monastic cell. Hut the 
versatile Catherine built the original as a retreat 
from state cares in the society of literati and ar- 
tists, and the modern edifice, finished forty years 
ago, })reserves the inappropriate name. 

No museum in Europe is si) beautiful or so 
costly. A very gorgeous lackey received our cards 
at the entrance, and two others, equally bedizened, 
stood at the foot of the stately flight of marble 
steps. vSixteen red-granite monoliths and ten 
giants of gray granite support the vestibule, and 
numerous statues of artists fill niches in the 
walls. At the head of the three flights which 
compose the stairway are two magnificent can- 
delabra stands of violet jasper from Siberia. The 
decorations of galleries and corridors only faintly 
indicate the wealth of the empire in marbles, mal- 
achite, lapis lazuli, crystals, precious stones, and 



248 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



gold. The pictures in the gallery are set off by 
crimson-silk hangings on the walls ; the floors, of 
polished wood-mosaic, are uniform in color, with- 
out lights and shades, and therefore not intrusive 
on the paintings. Rich crimson -silk -covered 
chairs and sofas offer rest, and vases and tazzas of 
jasper and onyx stand upon tables of pink por- 
phyry and malachite. There are fifteen hundred 
pictures, beautifully arranged and well lighted. 
The Spanish collection seemed to me the best out 
of Spain ; but while rich in specimens of Murillo, 
it fails to rival the Madrid gallery in Velasquez 
portraits. There are several Raphaels, Titians, 
and Tintorettos, but not the masterpieces of those 
painters, and on the whole the Italian school does 
not compare with that in Florence. The French 
pictures are numerous and beautiful, but the 
Flemish and Dutch collection is the finest of all. 

However, my opinion, rapidly formed, is ofi'ered 
as that of an amateur, not a critic ; for weeks of 



ST. PETERSBURG. 249 

Study would be required to know thoroughly 
these treasures, to which all the most celebrated 
painters in Europe have contributed. The room 
of Russian pictures is very interesting, because 
national in design, and novel in subject ; the ar- 
tists receive much encouragement from the gov- 
ernment, and when they indicate talent are sent 
off with pensions to study in Paris and Rome. It 
was unfortunate for us that several private gal- 
leries were closed for the summer, especially in 
Moscow, and we thus missed seeing some of the 
most celebrated Russian creations. 

The numismatic collection, which is extremely 
rich and valuable, contains rare coins from Greece 
and from all the ancient provinces of Russia, 
many of them earlier than the period of dies, being 
merely bits of metal chopped from the mass. 
About one thousand English specimens of the 
reigns of Canute and Ethelred were excavated in 
Russia, and doubtless served, as did the large 



250 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



numbers found in Scandinavia, fur commerce in 
furs. 

There is a long series of rooms filled with gems, 
mosaics, precious manuscripts, engraved stones, 
and cameos, and a curious collection excavated 
at Kertch in the Crimea, which was a point of 
Greek civilization 500 b. c. Here are crowns, 
weapons, and ornaments of gold which had been 
untouched more than two thousand years ; a 
priestess of Ceres, who was buried with all her 
ornaments and four horses, the trappings of 
which remain ; innumerable bracelets, necklaces, 
brooches, etc., enriched with enamel, filigree, and 
precious stones, and finer than all modern work- 
manship ; gold stirrups and bits ; exquisite ob- 
jects in colored glass, an art which the Venetians 
learned from Greece at a later period ; a beautiful 
head-ornament of ears of wheat ; and silver re- 
pousse vases and drinking-cups, unrivalled in the 
world. In truth this collection of classic jewelry 



S7\ PETERSBURG. 25 I 



is far more rich and varied than that c^f the Vati- 
can or the British Museum. Amid all this para- 
phernalia of beauty and of vanity is a small 
wooden comb inscribed, " A present from Sister" ! 
There is also an electrum vase with repousse 
figures of Scythians mending their weapons, one 
having a tooth extracted, a third his wounds 
dressed, and all costumed like the Russian peas- 
antry of to-day — the shirt outside the trousers, and 
the trousers inside the boots ! Hard studv for 
many weeks would scarcely serve to familiarize 
one with the treasures of the Hermitage ; but, 
alas ! our 

" bird of Time had but a little way to flutter, 
And the Bird was on the wing" ! 

We turned into the gallery of Peter the Great, 
and encountered an efiigy of the Iron Tsar, start- 
lingly realistic and very like his numerous portraits, 
with pronounced Muscovite features, coal-black 



252 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



hair and mustache, and wide-open eyes gazing at 
the reHcs of his mundane existence. He is seated 
in a chair, dressed in a faded and worn blue-silk 
doublet and hose embroidered by the peasant-wife 
whom he loved so well, — "my heart's friend," as 
he called her, — who retained her influence by not 
changing her native simplicity or putting on airs 
after she became Tsarina. Peter's massive canes 
stand near him, and he looks as if he were quite 
ready to seize one of them according to his wont 
and lay it across the shoulders of servant or officer 
who might offend him. A heavy iron one among 
the number might well leave a lasting souvenir 
of the irascible owner. There are more credita- 
ble tokens of his personality in telescopes, mathe- 
matical instruments, turning-lathes, and imple- 
ments for wood-carving ; also a wax cast of his 
face, taken while he lived. 

In the small palace which he had built for him- 
self, the first house on the marshes of the Neva, 



ST. PETERSBURG. 253 

the furniture is principally the work of his hands — 
wardrobes, tables, arm-chairs, and a clock, carved 
with taste and skill. A wax model in a glass case 
in this gallery of the Hermitage represents an 
exceedingly quaint little body who was his house- 
keeper in Holland ; and a pole seven feet high 
shows his own stature. Here also are scores of 
other cases filled with every conceivable device for 
the display of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and 
sapphires ; snuff-boxes, jewel-coffers, rings, neck- 
laces, watches, gold goblets, in endless variety ; im- 
perial crowns ; Potemkin's glittering plume, pre- 
sented by the Sultan ; Suvaroff's, given by the 
Shah ; two watches in the shape of ducks, one in 
the form of an ^^'g ; a small parrot carved from an 
emerald ; bouquets of flowers made entirely of 
precious stones ; several jewelled walking-sticks 
that belonged to Catherine ; and a mechanical 
clock, also her property, but now out of order, 
which represents a gilded peacock of life-size, 



2,54 J^USSIAN DAYS. 



whose tail when expanded was studded with sap- 
phires, emeralds, and diamonds ; a cock that with 
blazing crest flapped his wings, an owl that rolled 
his onyx eyes, and a brilliant grasshopper devour- 
ing an agate mushroom ; fine ivory carvings ; 
pocket-books of tortoise-shell studded with sap- 
phires and rubies ; and countless other costly com- 
binations of jewels, which are not merely marvels 
of workmanship but are associated with all the 
illustrious names of the last two centuries. 

There is a little cottage of two rooms on the 
Neva which Peter occupied before the erection of 
the house alluded to above. The small room 
M'here he ate and slept is now a chapel, completely 
lined with pictures of saints in gilded shrines, the 
most important one being a repulsive image of 
the Saviour, which accompanied Peter wherever he 
went. It is believed to have wrought many mira- 
cles, and to be potent against all ills of humanity. 
The day we were there we noticed a young 



Sr. PETERSBURG. 255 

moiijik kneeling opposite this image ; with inces- 
sant crossings he prostrated himself on the marble 
floor, which was swept by his long dark hair ; but 
his trembling lips and streaming eyes betrayed 
some stronger emotion than that of ordinary 
prayer : his gaze was riveted on the unresponsive 
picture with a pleading agony that meant life or 
death. We walked slowly around the chapel, and 
then went out to see the boat which Peter himself 
created ; we lingered in the porch and watched the 
devotees who thronged to the shrine : and still he 
knelt and wept and kissed the sacred stones, as if 
his utter abandonment of woe must wrest from the 
symbol or from its antitype a promise or a conso- 
lation. What cruel reality pressed upon him we 
could not know ; was it the menaced life of one 
he loved, or was it — Siberia .f* We could not in- 
trude upon him, nor could we command his lan- 
guage ; but we shall never forget that abject peas- 
ant on the banks of the Neva. 



256 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



Very near this point stand the high battle- 
mented walls of the fortress of St. Peter and St. 
Paul, which is also a prison, and contains the 
mint, and a cathedral whose pyramidal spire, cov- 
ered with gold and surmounted, as usual, by an 
angel and a cross, is the highest in Russia and 
towers conspicuously above the city. All the 
Tsars since the time of Peter are buried here, as 
before they were buried in Moscow. The walls 
are covered with military trophies, flags, keys of 
fortresses, etc. , the tokens of various foreign con- 
quests. 

The emperors' tombs are of white marble with- 
out effigies. Above each is a sacred image set with 
diamonds. The one above Peter the Great rep- 
resents his stature and breadth at his birth, 5:^ 
inches by 19^; the image of St. Paul above the 
Emperor Paul serving a like purpose. Commem- 
orative wreaths and flowers lay upon the tomb of 
Alexander II., whose assassination still pervades 



ST. PETERSBURG. 257 

the capital with a tremor of pain and foreboding. 
In the museum of imperial carriages, which we 
visited the same day, there was nothing so impres- 
sive as the one he occupied when the fatal shot 
was lired. It is a closed carriage of the ordinary 
style, lined with dark-blue silk. The first bullet 
tore open half the back and killed the footman ; 
as every one remembers, the emperor was shot 
after he stepped out of the vehicle to support his 
valued servant. A commemorative chapel is now 
in process of erection on the spot. 

This museum is one of the essential sights of 
St. Petersburg. The lower floor is occupied by 
the ordinary travelling and town equipages of the 
court, which of course are as handsome and lux- 
urious as modern art can make them. A flight of 
stairs lined with beautiful Gobelin tapestries leads 
to the second story, where forty or fifty immense 
vehicles create a perfect blaze of splendor. They 
are all completely covered with gold, even to the 



258 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



spokes of the wheels, which revolve around axles 
dazzling with Siberian jewels. They are all lined 
with red-silk velvet ; the panels of several are 
beautifully painted by French artists, and those 
belonging to the empresses bear the arms of Rus- 
sia incrusted with diamonds. The coachman 
who had the honor of conveying Catherine the 
Great sat on a box upheld by carved and gilded 
eagles ; the back of the vehicle is guarded by St. 
George and the Dragon, and above the roof 
blazes a jewelled crown. Another, made for the 
same empress, is painted on gold ground with 
allegorical designs, — Venus leaving her bath ; Cath- 
erine as a deity from Olympus, bringing Peace and 
Plenty, etc., — and the velvet interior is decorated 
with rich Spanish point-lace. Another contained 
a small stove and a card-table ; and some of them 
would hold ten or twelve occupants. They re- 
quire at least eight horses, and the Russians fre- 
quently drive four or five abreast. The harnesses 



ST. PETERSBURG. 259 

and saddles exhibit the same lavishness of gold 
and color, with most elaborate finish and inter- 
mixture of jewels. Coachmen and footmen are 
nearly covered with gold lace on their green, blue, 
or red velvet attire at the coronation of an empe- 
ror, when all these emblazoned carriages and trap- 
pings are sent off to Moscow, to figure in the pa- 
geant. The oldest of them are without springs, 
are hung very high, and are attached by straps to 
poles twenty feet long and of great thickness. 

Again our favorite Tsar, Peter, presents himself 
through the sledge made by his ingenious hands. 
It is merely a square box painted some dark 
color, with mica windows and one hard, uncom- 
fortable seat ; a small wooden trunk behind held 
his clothes and provisions for the journey to Arch- 
angel. No Sybarite was the iron-willed Tsar. 

The long twilights of July aff"orded us charming 
drives in the extensive public parks on the islands 
in the river, where we found many sylvan nooks 



26o RUSSIAN DAYS. 



and picturesque bridges over streams studded 
with fanciful chalets, each with its own pretty 
garden. The trees are generally firs and birch, 
smaller than those in Norway ; but there are also 
fine oaks. 



I have outlined with rapid pen only a few of the 
salient features of this fascinating capital ; but my 
modest pages approach their limit, and I must yet 
present a brief kaleidoscopic view of the ancient 
and beloved city of the Tsars — -'' Holy Moscow.'' 




The Kremlin — Moscow. 



CHAPTER IL 

MOSCOW. 

WHEN the Emperor Nicholas decreed a rail- 
way between St. Petersburg and Moscow 
for military convenience, and with pen in hand 
drew a straight line, which left out all villages 
and towns en route, he builded better than he 
knew, or cared, for the benefit of future tourists. 
A more flat and desolate intervening country 
would be difficult to find anywhere ; even more 
dreary is it than the desert plateau between Bur- 
gos and Madrid. Therefore one loses nothing by 
taking the night-train to Moscow, which starts 
about eight o'clock. 

We had secured a private compartment the pre- 
vious day by a few rubles supplementary to the 



MOSCOW. 263 



salary of some prominent official, who greeted us 
with the high consideration always awarded to 
such disinterested action. Our small salon, fur- 
nished with two tables, was convertible into a 
comfortable bedroom. 

The road, which was constructed by an Ameri- 
can engineer, is remarkably smooth, and the car- 
riages are luxurious. The stations, standing in 
oases of trees and gardens, are built of red brick 
and white stone, and are the most spacious and 
handsome I have ever seen. In each one is a gay 
little shop for the sale of national trifles, sculp- 
tured wooden crosses, morocco slippers embroi- 
dered in silver and gold, Circassian belts, knives 
in niello work, etc. Waiters in full dress serve 
excellent refreshments, and the buffets offer fair 
wines, beer, kvas, a sort of fruit-syrup, leslo/ka, a 
spirit flavored with black-currant leaves, vodka, 
which is not a fiery liquid — in small quantities — and 
more pleasant than brandy, besides all the curious 



264 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



"appetizers," called zakuska. Half an hour or 
more is allowed at the principal stopping-places, 
and there are frequent pauses of ten minutes, 
which give opportunity to scan the coming and 
going pilgrims as they frequented the stations. 
As we approached Moscow we noticed officers 
in dashing uniforms ; long-bearded merchants ; 
Tartars or Armenians ; Russian peasants in long 
caftans and long hair ; women with bright-colored 
handkerchiefs tied at the back of their heads ; a 
little better class sparkling with chains, bracelets, 
and all sorts of showy jewelry. No one hastens, 
for there are three warning bells, and no confusion 
prevails. 

The distance to Moscow is about fourteen hours, 
and in the luminous summer night we had ample 
opportunity to study the monotonous and dreary 
landscape. Hour after hour the scene repeats it- 
self ; now and then appears a cluster of miserable 
wooden cabins, with a few vegetables struggling 



MOSCOW. 



-^^5 



out of the earth ; no farms, no paths, no inclos- 
ures ; sometimes a small white church with green 




^^ ^ ■»=*»««" r" -^^= - 



Russian Costume. 



cupola indicates that souls as well as bodies in- 
habit those pitiful abodes. It is said, however, 



266 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

that the peasants are a contented, good-humored 
race and may be very merry on occasion, espe- 
cially when in the winter snows, well wrapped in 
sheep-skins, they disport like polar bears. But 
the intolerable cold and darkness of six months of 
the year and the prostrating heat of three months 
more must dishearten, and the consequence is a 
continuous flow of population into the cities, 
where employment of some sort is readily ob- 
tained, not only to support life, but also to pay 
the tax to the commune, which since the emanci- 
pation of the serfs takes the place of that formerly 
given to the nobles or the State. 

By the terms of the emancipation law the serfs 
were divided into communes, which possess the 
land in common, under a local government ; but 
any member of the commune may readily obtain 
from it permission to seek employment in one of 
the cities, and to pay his tribute in money instead 
of in labor on the land. We heard from several 



MOSCOW. 



267 



sources that the servants are incorrigible pilferers 
(except the Tartars, who are perfectly honest) ; but 




Russian Peasant. 



as an offset they are good-humored, respectful, and 
obedient. There was a story told many years ago 



268 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



of a soldier on guard in the Winter Palace when 
it took fire and the whole interior was consumed. 
A priest who was hurrying from the chapel with 
some of its sacred vessels warned him to quit his 
post. "I wait orders," said the man. The priest 
hurriedly absolved him, and he stood sturdily at 
his post and was burned to death. 

The monotony of the road to INIoscow is broken 
twice by long bridges over streams which wander 
away through endless plains and between dismal 
forests, howling in winter with wolves and bears, 
till they unite with the Volga and are finally lost 
in the Caspian Sea. About ten o'clock in the 
morning we passed several rather pretty villages, 
masses of dark trees, and finally, through the veil 
of thin, quivering haze, we caught sight of the 
burnished domes, the pinnacles, crosses, and 
polychromatic colors of the ancient city of the 
Tsars. How gay was our excitement ! how hypo- 
critical our assumed composure ! Moscow : so 



MOSCOH'\ 269 



far from home it sounded ! so like a bit from the 
Arabian Nights it looked ! 

The conventionalities of tlie railway station and 
the appearance of a hybrid Russo-English valet de 
place from the hotel dispelled the illusion, and 
we were soon whirling through the labyrinthine 
streets, which in their confusion of geometry and 
mad festivity of color resembled a kaleidoscope 
out of order, until we arrived at the Slavianski 
Bazaar. This edifice is not a place of merchan- 
dise, but a comfortable hotel, whose appoint- 
ments, though composite of Russian and Ger- 
man, adapt themselves to all seasonable require- 
ments. There are no tables d'hote in Russia, but 
for a party of travellers dinner a la carte is always 
more agreeable. There is an English manager, 
who attends very civilly to his guests. Two por- 
ters stand like caryatides at the entrance-door 
when not engaged in opening and shutting car- 
riages ; their dress is like that of the guards on 



270 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



the railway — white gloves, full plaited dark wool- 
len caftans belted around the waist and reaching 
to the knees, where they meet the loose high 
boots universal in the low^er classes ; but unlike 
the guards they wear high evases, cloth caps with 
the aesthetic appendage of peacock-feathers all 
around the front. 

Our suite of rooms had a balcony which over- 
looked a square thoroughly Oriental, save for the 
lack of turbans and burnouses. 

This part of Moscow is the Kilai Gorod, or 
Chinese City, so called because within its walls 
merchants formerly sought shelter for the treas- 
ures they brought from China and other foreign 
sources. The Slavianski Bazaar was probably 
a prominent point of traffic. On one side of the 
square were several churches ; one with clusters of 
pale-green cupolas surmounted by Greek crosses, 
and bell-towers shaped like bulbs ; another, more 
distant, gleaming in various colors of red, blue, 



MOSCOIV. 



27 I 



green, and silver, like the scales of the fabled 
dragon ; in front, the turrets and buttresses of the 




Wine Seller — Moscow Market. 



wall of the Kitai Gorod ; and between these a 
market-place crowded with men in blue shirts, 



272 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



red shirts, and patriarchal beards ; a few women 
in motley wear ; vendors of fish, vegetables, and 
wine, with baskets on their heads ; rude, unpainted 
carts, and shaggy, long-haired horses slightly har- 
nessed with ropes, and a murmur in the air of 
strange, soft syllables. 

The Russian language is very pleasant to the ear 
and pictorial to the eye ; but its grammar, which 
has no article, bristles with declinations, inflections, 
and inversions which no foreigner but Mezzofanti 
could conquer and only Mark Twain conld justly 
describe. Breakfast was served in our sitting- 
room — Ichai slamonum and strawberries, of course ; 
and our brief vocabulary, here as everywhere, 
proved an essential acquisition, for the servants, 
with one exception, spoke nothing but Russ ; 
our chambermaid also was a native and knew 
only four French words, but made up the deficit 
with smiles. 



MOSCOH\ 273 



THE STREETS. 

We soon started Tor a drive, under the leader- 
ship of Evanson, the va/e/ de p/ace, who was hence- 
forth our constant attendant. It is best to engage 
a carriage by the week ; for although the pave- 
ments are as bad as they well can be, and there is 
little pleasure in the movement, yet the distances 
are too great for ladies to walk, and at all events 
they should never walk unattended. 

There is as great a contrast between the two 
capitals of Russia as between its two zones of 
climate and cultivation, St. Petersburg rises from 
a flat and marshy delta apparently more water 
than land ; broad rivers and a sea menace its ex- 
istence ; its wide, right-angled streets, modern 
palaces, and general pomp of classic imitation are 
not in harmony with gilded spires and domes of 
Muscovite antiquity. Moscow, which is about 
twenty-five miles in circumference, rises on gently- 



274 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



undulating hills around which glides a small 
sinuous river ; the irregular streets are built in 
two concentric zones, the interior of which is the 
older and more picturesque one. In the centre, 
on a yet more elevated hill, stands the KremHn, 
visible from every point within the horizon, and on 
all sides the sky-line is pierced by sparkling domes, 
cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, with an effect like 
aerial chevaux de /rise of gold and silver. After 
the great conflagration in 1812 the city was re- 
built on the same tortuous lines, with little change 
of general aspect except that more gardens were 
introduced and the houses were more decorated. 
The Kremlin was much less injured than the city 
at large, and thus the venerable city retains, except 
in its modern outstretching boulevards, its ancient 
prestige. It is the revered Mecca of the Russian 
peasant, who as soon as he catches sight from afar 
of the golden cross on the Ivan tower falls on 
his knees with patriotic devotion. 




Game Vendor— Moscow Market. 



276 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



It is less than two hundred years since the in- 
fluence of Western Europe was first known in 
Russia, and thus far the traditions and customs of 
the East are not effaced. Long centuries of 
Byzantine civihzation, which even under Tartar 
rule was preserved in the convent fortresses, have 
impressed upon the people great faith in their re- 
ligion, fidelity to the Tsars, and love for the father- 
land. All these elements of stability promise well 
for the future greatness of the empire ; and to 
these may be added the material dependence of 
each portion upon the others. The grain-lands of 
the South, the forests of the North, the sea-coasts 
of both for the industrial interior, form a mutual 
and permanent bond of necessity. 

Only after many days does the eye accustom 
itself to the bizarre and marvellous variety of form 
and color in Moscow. Here stands a palace with 
imposing iron portals painted in red and gold ; 
there, a white church with a constellation of stars 



MOSCon\ 277 



on the blue ground of its dome : next, a cluster 
of yellow wooden tenements, then a family man- 
sion with profuse pillars ; again, we pass an open 
court or garden entered through a wrought-iron 
trellised gateway that stands between green and 
white columns, and within we see a convent, or a 
church, or a private dwelling, with splashes of red 
roof, blue roof, green roof, or gilded cupolas : — - 
as if a mad painter had shaken a gigantic palette 
full of color over the entire city. Add to this the 
ornate signs above the shops and the same gay 
simulacra as at St. Petersburg of fruits, vegetables, 
wines, etc. The shrines for holy images with 
perpetual lamps before them are nn^re profuse, 
and the genuflections and signs of the cross more 
noticeable, perhaps because the streets are not so 
wide and the crowd is larger. 

There are fewer foreigners in Moscow, and odd 
costumes are frequent. Now and then a Persian 
or an Armenian in embroidered fez and jacket 



278 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



and creamy silk vest strides with slippered feet 
along the pavement, or a turbaned Circassian, 
girt with silver belt from which hangs a scimitar 
and a yataghan. White-bearded old peasants 
from the country with serious blue eyes would 
pose as Abrahams to the delight of an artist, and 
the hand-worked dresses of the girls with lavish 
strings of colored beads are extremely tasteful. 

We took a drive one Sunday afternoon to the 
Petrovski Park, 'and came upon the Sax Garden, 
where there was a fine band and restaurant, and 
a crowd of pleasure-seekers as gay as parrots and 
peacocks. One costume was a high, gold-em- 
broidered cap, and a black silk dress with scarlet 
sleeves, to which were added gold chains, brooches, 
and necklaces enough to fit out a jeweller's win- 
dow. But such attire is exceptional ; the usual 
dress is cosmopolitan, with national variations. 
Our valet de place, who perhaps had his own in- 
terest in the matter, conducted us one day to a 



MOSCOW. 279 



small shop of purely Caucasian silks and orna- 
ments, the master of which was a Persian, and 
in his becoming native costume a superb speci- 
men of Oriental manly beauty, with tragic face 
and reverent ctnirtesy of manner. His creamy 
silk shawls were as fascinating as himself, and we 
made several purchases at prices lower than he 
asked, though not without a feeling that it was 
almost an insult to his Grandeur to ask a reduc- 
tion on the wares he condescended to hand over 
to our Commonplaces. After this, one of my 
party, whose blue eyes see all in the world that 
'is beautiful and good and nothing that is ugly 
or evil, vanished every day for half an hour, under 
the protection of Evanson, ostensibly to buy a 
Bagdad shawl or some bit of Eastern trumpery, 
but actually, I believe, for the sake of seeing this 
Persian Magnificence lay his hand on his heart and 
say in soft syllables, with a voice as deep-toned and 
sonorous as a Moscow bell, ^' To you, my lady, 



28o RUSSIAN DAYS. 



I would give it for ten rubles ; but, alas ! I cannot 
for less than fifteen ! Nevertheless, accept it for 
twelve !" 

The bells of Moscow ! There may exist such 
musical intonations elsewhere, but I have never 
heard them. Every morning at an early hour the 
bells in the churches near the Slavianski Bazaar 
lifted their grand voices, not suddenly, in stunning 
avalanche of sound, but in single successive notes 
in the same diapason, which filled the air with 
harmonious pulsations, deep and thrilling as 
those of a mighty organ. All other bells, even 
festive bells in other lands, are a jangle and a 
wTangle forever hereafter, — excepting " Big Ben " 
of Westminster and St, Mark's in Venice, which in 
their melodious resonance are akin to those of 
Moscow. The great bell of the Ivan tower is 
unequalled in size as well as in timbre ; it was 
brought from Novgorod the Great, where it once 
called the population to arms when the Muscovite 




Ivan Tower, Kremlin— Moscow. 



282 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



Grand Dukes threatened their freedom. There are 
thirty-two more bells in the Ivan tower, two of 
them made of silver, and the oldest one bears the 
date of 1550. There are 345 churches in Mos- 
cow, and as doubtless they all have bells, the flood 
of melodious sound on Christmas and Easter 
morning may be imagined. 

At the foot of the Ivan tower stands on a low 
granite pedestal the colossal Tsar Kolokol, or 
King of Bells, which weighs about five hundred 
and fifty thousand pounds. Its date is unknown, 
for it fell and was recast several times, and each 
time gained essentially in weight. In 1733 it was 
last recast, and the ladies of Moscow commem- 
orated the occasion by throwing into the liquid 
metal many jewels and gold and silver ornaments, 
which probably weakened its strength, for it fell 
again five years later, and remained half-buried for 
a century. This tower of brass with walls two 
feet thick, capable of holding twenty-five or thirty 



MO SCO M'. 283 



men, will probably never again fulfil its mission 
as a bell, but now poses as a monument and a 
failure. 

The clustered bells that ring successive notes in 
the same diapason remind me of an anecdote of 
a certain princess who was accustomed to enter- 
tain her guests by the instrumental performance 
of a number of her serfs, who were trained, ac- 
cording to a prevailing custom, to sound each his 
single note in the proper place in the harmony. 
One evening the musicians were not forthcoming 
as usual, and on the princess being asked the rea- 
son, she replied, ' ' I am sorry that you can have 
no music to-night, but my C sharp has received 
forty lashes of the knout to-day, and is therefore 
unable to sound his note. " 

THE KREMLIN. 

The Kremlin, or ancient citadel, dating back of 
the XV. centur}', was repeatedly destroyed by fire in 



284 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

its earlier days, and has existed in its present form 
only one hundred and fifty years. Its crenelated 
walls, pierced by five great archways of entrance, 
embrace a triangular space of two square miles, 
and are flanked by enormous towers of every con- 
ceivable shape and size, round and square, light 
and graceful as minarets, or solid as bastions, 
surmounted by steep scaly roofs, brilliant as the 
hues of a tropical serpent. Below the ramparts 
lie verdant terraces, around the foot of which 
winds the lovely Moskva River. Formerly, watch- 
men on these battlements were constantly on the 
look-out, and when they saw clouds of dust 
sweeping over the flat plains of the south they 
knew that the Tartar hordes of the Crimea were 
at hand with devastating purpose. Then the 
great bell of the Ivan tower sounded the call of 
warning, and every one fled for safety to the forti- 
fied monasteries or the palace, at whose gates the 
wild horsemen battered in vain. The Kremlin, 



AIOSCOW. 285 

which is the arsenal of the army, the centre of 
the most sacred churches and of the royal palaces, 
is the Acropolis of Russia, and has been com- 
pared to the Alhambra. But the Alhambra has no 
such opulence of clustered domes and pinnacles, 
no such lavishment of golden reflections ; the 
shadows of a gifted and injured people rest upon 
its massive bastions ; the last sigh of Boabdil lin- 
gers in the Hall of Lions, and modern restora- 
tions of its delicate polychromatic tracery cannot 
chase the phantoms of sad sultanas, whose lutes 
once vibrated to laughter and the silvery fall of 
fountains. The Kremlin has no similar pathos in 
its history. The race that created it is the race of 
to-day, in full progress of development, and its rev- 
erence for the past combines with the love and hope 
of the present. I believe that one reason why our 
tour through Norway and Russia was so full of en- 
joyment was because we were not called upon to 
sigh over mouldering palaces and be-poetized ruins. 




Spasski (Redeemer) Gate — Kremlin. 



MOSCOW. 287 



The most grandiose gate leading into the Krem- 
lin is the Spasski (Redeemer) Gate, so called be- 
cause above the arch of entrance on the inner side 
is a sacred picture of the Saviour, which is one of 
the most revered in the city. No one, from Tsar 
to peasant, ever goes by without saluting it, and 
strangers are warned to follow that example — not 
only to uncover the head, but to leave it uncov- 
ered until they have passed through the deep arch- 
way : a requisition which, when the thermometer 
is ten or fifteen degrees below zero, must be 
rather conducive to sudden influenza. There 
is a legend that once when the Tartars attacked 
the Kremlin, such a mist came suddenly from the 
picture that they were unable to find the entrance. 
Criminals formerly executed in the large square 
outside always offered it their last prayers. 

There is another gate called the Nicholas, over 
which is suspended a miraculous image of St. 
Nicholas. Napoleon ordered the destruction of 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 



this tower, but it escaped with only a cleft that ex- 
tended to the frame of the picture, and not even 
the glass before it, or the hanging-lamp, was in- 
jured. After passing through the Spasski Gate we 
are on the elevated esplanade that overlooks the 
city, and surrounded by palaces, monasteries, and 
churches from which rise fantasic minarets and 
arrowy stems supporting crown-like golden domes, 
and clusters of larger domes which from certain 
angles reflect on their burnished surfaces clouds 
above and trees below. Beyond spreads the 
broad panorama. 

From the summit of the Ivan tower, which we 
ascended, there is a view as dazzling as a scene of 
enchantment. The eye sweeps over gardens, 
buildings with gay-colored roofs, and the thou- 
sand domes and countless Greek crosses which 
group in dark rich masses or spring in airy bright- 
ness under the play of sunshine and shadow. 



MOSCOW. 289 



THE KREMLIN PALACES. 

We went every day to the Kremlin, and the 
days were all too few. We had only ten ; but they 
began early and ended late, and fortunately the 
usual warmth of summer was tempered by a daily 
shower. We awoke early each morning to the 
sound of those glorious bells, and we always 
sprang to the balcony to assure ourselves that the 
mise-en-scene had not vanished in the night. 

We passed two long mornings at the Imperial 
Palace and the adjoining one of the ancient Tsars. 
Their details are fixed on my memory, but I hesi- 
tate to attempt description. The New Palace 
built by Nicholas presents externally a mixture of 
architecture quite incongruous with the Byzantine 
edifices around it, but the interior has all the os- 
tentation of space resplendent with gold and 
color that delisrhts the Russian eve. The vestibule 
is supported by the usual monoliths, which here 



290 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



are of gray marble, and the lofty staircase is of the 
same material. Two superb crystal vases stand 
on either side at the top, and the wall is nearly 
covered by a vigorous painting of the victory 
of Dimitry of the Don over the Tartars, in 
1380 — a ruinous victory, as he began with four 
hundred thousand men and ended with forty 
thousand. A good monarch, say historians, was 
this same Dimitry, just and kindly, but the victim 
of Tartar invasion at last. 

From this picture we pass through ante-rooms 
and corridors, until we reach the chastely beautiful 
Hall of St. George, two hundred feet long and 
proportionally wide and high, all in gold and 
white ; the floors of exquisite marquetrie, the 
walls inscribed with the names in gold of the 
members of the Order. The crystal chandeliers 
hold 3,200 candles ; but the next room en suite, 
the Alexander Hall, w^hich is only half as long, is 
lighted by 4,500. This superb room in pink and 



MOSCOW. 291 



gold is filled with pictures relating to the life of 
St. Alexander Nevsky. Then follows the Hall of 
St. Andrew, vaulted like a Gothic cathedral, with 
walls of pale-blue silk and gold ; and the thrones 
of the emperor and empress at the end are su- 
perbly carved and gilded, with jewelled crowns 
and a jewelled letter A resting above the gold-em- 
broidered crimson velvet which cushions them ; 
the dais and the steps leading to it are covered 
with cloth of gold. 

We proceed to other state drawing-rooms and 
state bedrooms adorned with brocaded walls, jas- 
per mantelpieces, verde-antique pilasters, mirrors 
in silver frames, etc., until we are sated with mod- 
ern splendor, and gladly descend by an inner pas- 
sage to the ancient palace of the Tsars, which is 
so fantastic and bizarre that we seem to have been 
led blindfold to Ispahan or Bagdad. 

1 cannrt picture all these most curious rooms ; 
but the banqueting-room where the emperor and 



292 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



empress dine the day of their coronation will 
suffice to give an idea of the others. The ceiling 
is formed of gilded vaultings which meet in the 
centre, and are upheld by an enormous pillar 
around which stands in prandial pomp, on these 
occasions, a massive and ancient silver service. 
Geometric figures of frowning colors overlie the 
gold of the walls, and, following the lines of the 
arches, dark inscriptions in old Sclavonic letters 
bear to a stranger's eye a mysterious menace like 
that of the writing on Belshazzar's wall. The 
newly-crowned sovereigns in the pomp of their 
regalia sit on thrones under a canopy of cloth of 
gold bordered with ermine, and drink to the 
health of their subjects, while crowned heads only 
share their repast. The highest functionaries and 
superior clergy are seated at side tables, always 
facing the imperial party. 

The carpet in this room is like Persian em- 
broideries, a wonderful massing of brilliant bits 



MOSCOW. 293 



of cloth sewed into apertures cut in the ground- 
work ; the colors very bright, but quite in har- 
mony with the principles of that sort of art. 

Very interesting is the Terem, or suite of rooms 
in the upper stories set apart for the wives and 
children of the Tsars, to which the ascent is by a 
narrow twisted stairway with carved stone balus- 
trade ; the rooms are small and vaulted, ceilings 
and walls overlaid with ornate and elaborate 
arabesques ; red predominates in one room, blue 
in another, green in a third ; frescoes intermingled 
present sacred subjects, and the narrow painted 
windows repeat the mural colors. The light as 
it came through them was dim and cloistered even 
that summer day, and must have been lugubrious 
indeed to the royal ladies who were once restricted 
to these narrow limits. One wonders how they 
passed the interminable hours : the wife of Peter 
the Great in her modest home in St. Petersburg 
embroidered her husband's doublet and superin- 



2 94 J^USSIAN DAYS. 



tended his dinner. The furniture is Asiatic in 
fashion, very odd but unostentatious ; a cushion 
and rug that He at the foot of the uncomfortable 
wooden arm-chair of the Tsar Michael were 
worked by one of his daughters, but their bar- 
baric combinations of color would scarcely find 
favor in our art-schools. 

There is a charming, quaint simplicity in the 
ancient Romanoff house outside of the Kremlin, 
where we felt introduced into a princely Russian 
household of three centuries past. It would leave 
much to desire in this luxurious age, in size, light, 
and comfort ; but as the small, low rooms are 
made of carved wood, dark brown with age, they 
contrast restfully with the opulence of decoration 
in other royal abodes. It has even now a look of 
home life ; we could almost see the sturdy 
Romanoff children playing with the toys and 
primers which are preserved in a glass case since 
they were laid there two hundred years ago, — such 



MOSCOW. 295 



toys and primers as our babies would laugh to 
scorn, — and we could fancy the grandfather of our 
friend Peter shuffling about in the half-worn 
yellow-leather slippers that have survived him, and 
the Tsarina complacent with her extremely coarse 
linen chemise — embroidered all the same — now 
yellow with the tints of time. 

THE KREMLIN CHURCHES. 

The most characteristic church in Moscow is 
the Cathedral of the Assumption, in the Kremlin, 
where the Tsars have always been crowned. Its 
dark and sumptuous interior recalls the gleaming 
cavern of St. Mark's, but does not, like that, 
stretch into mystical indistinctness. Four im- 
mense square pillars supporting the central cu- 
pola are flanked by four smaller ones. On the 
golden ground which covers every inch of the 
walls, as well as of the pillars, are depicted hun- 
dreds of sombre, archaic saints, martyrs, and even 



296 RUSSIAN BAYS. 



the Eternal Father in guise of an old man with 
sweeping white hair and beard — a pantheon of 
nimbussed gods whose sad, fixed eyes and ex- 
tended hands seem to menace rather than bless. 
The lofty gold wall of the Ikonostas reaches almost 
to the ceiling ; on its fayade stand five rows of 
saints, one above the other, their aureoles 
studded with diamonds, while bracelets and neck- 
laces of rubies, sapphires, pearls, emeralds, and 
amethysts sparkle around their brown necks and 
hands. The more uncouth in mien and color 
these images, the more they are esteemed ; those 
of most ancient and holy repute are nearly black, 
like the Madonnas of St. Luke. Their accom- 
paniments of burning lamps, candles, jewels, and 
gold seem little removed from pagan idolatry ; but 
we remember that these symbols appeal to the 
imagination : that flame is a token of the presence 
of the Holy Spirit, and lavishness of ornament 
bestowed represents the abnegation of the givers. 



MOSCOW. 297 



But although the first effect of these Russian 
churches dazzles the eye and kindles the fancy, 
we recur with increased admiration to the ' ' petri- 
fied music " of Gothic architecture, the perspec- 
tive of ''long-drawn aisle and fretted vault," and 
the personality of sculptured saints and apostles. 

As an example of the realistic impression of the 
latter, I recall the solemnly dramatic burial of 
Pius IX. in St, Peter's, which I had the privilege 
of witnessing. It was at night, and the vast edi- 
fice was in darkness save for the constellation of 
lamps that always burn around the tomb of the 
apostle, a few great candles that stood here and 
there on pedestals, and those borne by the mourn- 
ful procession. Their gleams fell fitfully on white 
monuments in the indefinite recesses of aisles and 
chapels, and cast Rembrandt-like shadows and 
lights on sculptured hierarchs and apostles. The 
uncofiined body of the dead high-priest, robed 
in scarlet and crowned with the tiara, was borne 



298 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

down the central nave and around the balda- 
chin of St. Peter to the chapel of the choir, fol- 
lowed by the helmeted ' ' Noble Guard, " ermined 
cardinals, empurpled monsignori, and a few 
favored spectators in deep black. In the fore- 
ground, majestic in form and attitude, stood St. 
Mark upon his pedestal, with outstretched hand 
pointing to the mural recess far above the tessel- 
lated pavement, and revealed by a solitary taper 
inside, where a departed pope sleeps until his 
successor claims his place. At every one of these 
rites, for centuries past, the inexorable hand of the 
marble apostle relegates to rest the marble pontiff. 
No such startling realism can be offered by the 
flatness of paint and sheen of gilding in the Greek 
Church. But, on the other hand, the music of the 
latter is far grander and more artistic than that of 
the Roman Church ; and the habiliments of the 
priests, the details of the service, and the devout- 
ness of the people make an effect superior in 



MOSCOW. 299 



grace, dignity, and impressiveness. It would re- 
quire a volume to describe the relics and sacerdo- 
tal ornaments which we saw in the Church of the 
Assumption and others within the Kremlin. 
Prominent among them was a book of gospels 
presented by the mother of Peter the Great, in 
binding of solid gold studded with precious 
stones, valued at ^^50, 000 ; it weighs one hun- 
dred pounds, and requires two men to lift it. 
We were carried back to the days of the Emperor 
Constahtine when we looked at the great gold 
cross incrusted with emeralds, rubies, etc., which 
belonged to him, and pageants of all earthly 
pomp were figured in the coronation-crowns and 
gorgeous vestments of patriarchs and bishops. 
The latter are principally in the sacristy of the 
Holy Synod ; chief among them is a crimson- 
velvet robe worn by the patriarchs of Moscow 
when they were consecrated, thickly embroidered 
with pearls and precious stones, and plates of 



300 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



gold with sacred devices in niello work are inter- 
spersed, making the entire weight of the vestment 
fifty-four pounds. Ivan the Terrible, one of the 
worst of the early Tsars, presented it in expiation 
of the murder of his own son ! 

Very many of the sacred vestments and vessels 
are expiatory offerings of sovereigns, or gifts to 
prove their piety. Some of the robes are covered 
with pictorial representations of the whole sacred 
drama, from the Annunciation to the Ascen- 
sion. 

The mitres are like domes surmounted by or- 
nate crosses ; one of them has a ground of blue 
damask, bordered with ermine ; the Saviour, the 
Virgin, and numerous saints, in gold, pearls, and 
stones, decorate the surface, and inscriptions in 
pearls fill the intervening spaces. Two of them run 
thus : ' ' Look down upon us from Thy heavens, O 
Lord !" "I put all my confidence in thee. Mother 
of God ; take me under thy holy protection." 



MOSCOW. 301 



All the precious stones added to this mitre give 
it the weight of five and a half pounds. 

I pass by the beautiful crosses of every sort — the 
pectorals, the altar-crosses, and those carried in 
processions with banners of such bulk and won- 
drous color and design as never are seen out of 
Russia ; but I pause a moment at the glass cases 
within which are the rare and \o\Q\y pa?iagias, or 
pectoral images worn by bishops. Some of them 
are of enamelled gold ornamented with rubies 
and pearls, and cameo figures of saints in the 
centre ; another is a sardonyx nearly four inches 
long, cut in three strata, — on the upper one being 
the Virgin and Child, in Byzantine design ; a third 
is a superb ruby engraved with the Annunciation, 
set in gold and diamonds ; and the fourth, a 
jasper encircled with colored jewels, presents a 
bas-relief of the Madonna among clouds, with 
arms upraised in prayer. 

Before leaving the churches of the Kremlin, 



302 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



the marvel and the beauty of which I have but 
touched with the tip of a flying wing, I return for 
a moment to the Cathedral of the Assumption, 
where I must mention a miracle-working Virgin, 
attributed to St. Luke. It found its way hither 
from Kief in the twelfth century, is believed to 
have forced the flight of Tamerlane from Russia, 
and its jewels, estimated at ^45,000 (one emerald 
alone being worth ;^i 0,000), gleam in the twi- 
light of the edifice with an almost supernatural 
light. 

At the approach of the French army all the 
most precious articles from the churches were 
secreted by the priests ; but nevertheless the sol- 
diers carried oif from this one alone five tons of 
silver and five hundred pounds in gold. Oblong 
tombs of patriarchs and bishops stand around the 
walls ; those most highly venerated are in the four 
corners, the place of honor here as in the Orient ; 
without effigy or sculpture, these sarcophagi re- 




Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel — In the 
Kremlin. 



304 



RUSSIAN DAYS. 



semble, as Gautier said, ''great trunks made for 
the journey of eternity. " 

Turning from the splendor of these ' ' lamps of 
sacrifice," we drove to the spacious Foundling 
Hospital, which stands in its own pretty park. We 
sent our cards to the Superior, who received us 
courteously, and conversed in fluent French while 
she escorted us through the well-ordered establish- 
ment. The rooms are all of great size, clean and 
airy, but very simply and scantily furnished. In 
the first one a number of neatly-dressed children, 
from five to ten years old, were at dinner. They 
rose and saluted us like little ladies and gentlemen 
as they were — orphans, we were told, of good birth 
and property, but without relatives, and therefore 
sent here until old enough for school-education. 

We then walked through five or six long rooms, 
in each of which there were at least sixty babies 
— the ' ' foundlings, " proper. Only two of them 
could be called pretty ; and their unattractiveness 



MOSCOW. 305 



of type was emphasized by the look of weary im- 
becility and old age that many new-born infants 
wear. Sixteen thousand are received every year ; 
about a third are illegitimate, and the remainder 
are brought by parents too poor to take care of 
them. 

Their tiny cribs were ranged in two long rows 
down the centre of the rooms ; and in front of them 
stood two rows of nurses, wearing short white 
sleeves, many strings of beads on their bare necks, 
and high white caps from which hung streamers 
of red or blue ribbons. Russian nurses wear 
blue when the baby in charge is a boy, and red 
when it is a girl. These peasant-women were in 
grattde tenue that day, as it was Sunday, when vis- 
itors are expected (the every-day dress is doubtless 
less coquettish), but their irregular Calmuck feat- 
ures were stolid and unresponsive. Those who 
had not babies at their breasts bowed very low, 
according to the fashion of the country, as we ap- 



3o6 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

proached. The Matron was anxious to exhibit 
every part of the institution, and we could not 
with poHteness decline ; and thus we were shown 
the chapel, where the infants are baptized imme- 
diately on arrival, if that rite has not been pre- 
viously performed ; the book in which their num- 
bers and names are recorded, when a correspond- 
ing label is tied around the infant neck ; baths of 
copper lined with thick flannel ; presses full of 
coarse but soft linen, and down-pillows on which 
they are dressed. Excellent physicians are pro- 
vided, and every comfort for the little waifs dur- 
ing the four weeks of their stay ; after that they 
are sent, together with their nurses, to the villages 
where the latter belong. About two rubles a 
month (from a dollar to a dollar and a half) are 
allowed for their maintenance, but more than half 
of them die from the rigor of the-climate and un- 
suitable food. 

With all reverence for the gentle humanity of 



MOSCOM'. 307 

this hospital, the sight of these helpless, homeless 
little beings was most pitiful. The four weeks 
within those sheltering walls are doubtless to ver\- 
many the least wretched of their lives. 

KUSSIAX MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS. 

Monasteries and convents are much alike everv- 
where since they have ceased to be receptacles of 
learning or refuges from outside barbarism ; but in 
order to compare those in Russia with others in 
Western Europe, we visited two of the oldest and 
most revered. The Devichi Convent in ]Moscow 
has been for three hundred and fifty years a sanct- 
uary for Tsarinas and other high-born ladies, many 
of whom are buried within its fortressed walls. 
Passing through a grand gateway, we entered a 
cemetery of tombs more or less pretentious, in- 
closed in gilded iron railings, and guarded by 
crosses and images of saints. Intermingled are 
several churches in the usual ornate stvle. the 



3o8 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

dwellings of the nuns, and simpler graves in every 
available spot, abundant flowers on the surface, 
but the ' ' conqueror worm"' beneath, revelling in 
his own domain. It was the hour for morning 
Mass in the principal chapel, and we obtained 
places near the choir, which was composed entirely 
of nuns. Their voices had neither sweetness nor 
power, and they were very unattractive women, 
sallow, dark, and of ascetic pallor. Perhaps their 
hideous veils were partly responsible ; few faces 
could stand the test of thick black serge, standing 
high and rigid on the head like an iron crown, 
and falling in long folds over a dress of the same 
funereal character. 

An abbess received us in her simple parlor with 
much courtesy, and led us the usual round of the 
pharmacy, the hospital, and the refectory. The 
nuns whom we saw without veils had pleasant 
faces ; the wooden floors were clean, tables and 
beds covered with white linen, pictured saints and 



MOSCOW. 309 



burning lamps in every room, but no evidence of 
occupation except in the work-room, where were 
many specimens of embroidery on musUn, not 
original and rather expensive. In the dark crypt- 
like refectory were long, narrow tables set with the 
conventual coarse linen and iron spoons, and with 
bread of dark unsifted wheat, not unpalatable 
and doubtless more wholesome than the fine 
quality now disapproved by medical science. 

The abbess proudly led us through a cavernous 
brick passage to the kitchen, which was in fine 
order for exhibition that day, as it offered the un- 
usual luxury of a meat-soup and an insipid pink 
jelly, in honor of the fete-day of the Superior. 

We asked whether the nuns visit the sick or in- 
struct children ; and the reply was, ' ' No : they say 
their prayers and embroider." Thus the pallid 
lives of these well-born ladies are not even bright- 
ened by the gracious tints of charity and good 
works. 



3IO RUSSIAA^ DAYS. 



Among other gentle amenities of the French 
invasion was the attempt to destroy this convent 
by putting barrels of gunpowder in the crypt of 
the principal church and igniting a stream of spir- 
its which they directed towards it. Several coura- 
geous nuns succeeded in extinguishing the flames. 

We started at eight o'clock one morning to take 
the train for Troitsa, in order to pass a few hours 
at the celebrated monastery of St. Sergius. It 
was always a pleasure, except for the atrocious 
pavements, to drive through the streets of this 
fascinating city. Moujiks alone were astir, more 
in harmony with the scene than their conven- 
tional masters. No women were visible, and in 
truth the old Asiatic habit of seclusion still retains 
a certain influence. We passed the large white 
station of the Siberia railway, and shuddered at 
thought of the agonized exiles to whom it has 
been a portal of despair. 

Lasciate ogm' speranza, voi cJi' entrate qui. 



Moscoir. 311 

From another station our train took us north- 
ward forty miles through a pretty undulating 
country marked by villages, gardens, and green- 
domed churches. The first appearance of the 
"holy, ancient, and monastic pile" is very strik- 
ing ; on a slightly elevated hill a quadrilateral, 
with very high white walls twenty feet thick, and 
eight fortified towers, incloses an imposing group 
of domed churches resplendent with the usual 
decorations. It was built more than five hun- 
dred years ago by St. Sergius — a man so eminent 
for piety that potentates came from afar to seek his 
blessing, and native sovereigns in return enriched 
the monastery with large grants of land. In the 
last century it owned a hundred thousand serfs, and 
the treasures within are unaccountable. It with- 
stood several sieges of Tartars and Poles, was a 
refuge for innumerable pilgrims, as well as for 
Peter the Great during the insurrection of the 
Streltzi, and fortunately the French never found 



,12 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



their way here — all which exemptions are attributed 
to the miracle-working portrait of St. Sergius. 
Within the walls is a miniature city, more brilHantly 
Oriental than the Orient itself : ten churches, the 
palaces of the Tsar and the Archimandrite, the 
refectory, cells of the monks, and treasure-rooms 
are planted without regularity, at any convenient 
point. There are no cloisters, but no hue of the 
rainbow is lacking : bright blue, red, pale green, 
and profuse gold inside, and outside, under the 
blue of the sky, the gold of the sun and the 
opaque white of the walls make a dizzy riot of 
color which, here as in Moscow, when gently 
toned by time is continually renewed. 

Service was proceeding in the Church of the 
Trinity, and we made our way, through the most 
picturesque and evil-smelHng crowd we had yet 
encountered, to the most weird of all interiors. 
The same long rows of unearthly figures on gold 
backgrounds stretch in perspective down the 



jiioscow. 313 



walls, stand on pillars, or start like phantoms 
from angles, revealed by a sudden light and 
shrinking back as it retires. The Ikonostas, 
which rises to the vaulted ceiling, is incomparably 
rich in precious stones around the aureoles of 
sainted hierarchs ; in close proximity is the silver- 
gilt tomb of St. Sergius, glittering with lamps and 
a canopy supported by four columns all of the 
same metal : around it knelt a group of pilgrims 
with long white beards and some noble faces 
illumined with faith and fervor ; desolate beggars 
in brown rags with yellow lights, their legs bound 
in rags strapped on like a classic cothurnus ; 
moujiks in dull reds and blues, prostrating, sign- 
ing the cross, kissing the sacred tomb ; while 
above them scintillated the prismatic hues of 
rubies, sapphires, and diamonds, irradiating here 
and there an uplifted head or a suppliant hand 
— a most typical picture which nothing in West- 
ern Europe can repeat. We visited the rooms 



314 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

where monks were copying with patient fideUty 
pictures of saints in colored draperies and golden 
glories, the shop where they are sold, and the 
treasuries of priestly paraphernalia presented by 
high personages, and not inferior to those in the 
Kremlin. Again are vestments embroidered with 
pearls and precious stones, forming flowers, figures, 
and Sclavonic inscriptions ; Bibles and liturgies en- 
amelled in arabesque patterns overlaid with rubies, 
emeralds, and sapphires of great size and splendor ; 
sacred vessels of gold with rims of diamonds ; 
strings of pearls, and crowns, crosses, caskets, 
vases, chandeliers : a Nile-like overflow of riches, 
each object the expression of a spiritual sentiment 
— of gratitude, of faith, or of remorse. 

But we could not linger in these rooms ; the 
windows seemed to have been sealed for centuries, 
and to the asphyxiating atmosphere was added the 
intolerable odor from an unwashed crowd. It is 
said that cholera and plague have never entered 



MOSCOH\ 315 

these holy walls ; and if that is true, Science may 
as well burn its books on cleanUness and ventila- 
tion. The fraternity live the same self-centred 
lives as the nuns of the convent Devichi ; painting 
takes the place of embroidery — voila tout ! 

A few miles distant are some old catacombs in- 
habited by men who have vowed seclusion from 
the light of day and the face of man : needless to 
say, we did not disturb their enjoyment. 

IN GENERAL. 

There seems no end to the sights of Moscow : 
museums, private picture-galleries, drives to parks, 
and excursions outside, as well as theatres where, 
even when ignorant of the language, the costumes 
and manners of the country will entertain. 

The Gostinnoi Dvor, or Bazaar, is a labyrinth of 
shops as small as those on* the Ponte Vecchio in 
Florence, filled with cheap wares from all the 
provinces of the empire ; in the silversmiths' row 



3i6 /RUSSIAN DAYS. 

are pretty trifles for souvenirs, for which, however, 
one must bargain or pay extortionately. 

Very near the Bazaar is the most extraordinary 
church in Moscow ; nor does another Uke it exist 
in any part of the world. At evening it seems a 
fantastic mirage or the architecture of cloud-land 
painted by sunset. It is a sort of Hindoo pagoda, 
containing nine chapels linked together internally 
by a maze of narrow corridors ; it has no centre, 
and each part is different from and independent 
of all the others. One cupola is carved like an 
artichoke, another like a pineapple, a third resem- 
bles a melon, a fourth a Turkish turban, and five 
more are of various designs, — all colored, as well 
as the body of the edifice, with the entire chro- 
matic scale, enhanced by silver and gold. This 
wild creation, which is called the Church of St. 
Basil, the patron saint of idiots, or the Vasili 
Blajennoi, was another of the expiatory offerings 
of John the Terrible for the murder of his son— 




Church of St. Basil — Moscow. 



3l8 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

much on the principle of the monumental effigies 
with folded hands 

"Who seek for life-long evil to atone 
By ceaseless orisons in stone." 

The climax of all the dazzling and half-barbaric 
opulence of historic and hereditary souvenirs is 
found in the Imperial Treasury. From the palace 
of the Tsars an immense staircase closed by a trel- 
lised iron gate leads to this receptacle of gifts 
from sultans and shahs, tributes of alliance with 
wild Asiatic chiefs, tokens of commercial traffic, 
— in short, the assembled Lares and Penates of all 
centuries past. 

We enter first the Armory, where four sentinels 
in old Sclavonic armor, mounted on strangely- 
caparisoned horses, never leave their posts, but 
guard with perpetual vigilance the trophies, flags, 
standards, and fire-arms which are grouped on 
walls and around pillars that support the vaulted 



MO s com: 319 



roof. I have seen the finest armories in Europe ; 
but none equals the interest of this, because it 
bears the stamp of a different civihzation. The 
art is lost of making the damascened blades and 
helmets accumulated here ; the banners are most 
pictorial and superb : one of the sixteenth century 
exhibits on a star-spangled field an image of 
Christ with a host of saints and seraphim on 
horseback (!) and a cloud of heavenly witnesses in 
the background. There are coats of mail en- 
graved with texts from the Koran ; scimitars and 
daggers with handles incrusted with turquoises 
and precious stones. 

In another room we salute the entire Romanoff 
family, with whose positive features and tall, mus- 
cular forms we have now become familiar, Peter 
the Great was our favorite ; his bluff, swarthy 
face, keen black eyes, and resolute mouth show 
the indomitable will, overflow of brain, and rough 
self-assertion that rank him as Ursus Major in the 



320 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



planisphere of sovereigns. Every object that illus- 
trates his life is interesting, from his big boots to 
the miniature carriage with mica windows in 
which as a child he was driven around the 
paternal park ; and we admire for his sake, even 
more than all the other resplendent crowns in 
this treasury, the one he had made for his peasant- 
wife, which contains 2536 diamonds, besides a 
ruby of almost inestimable value. 

The room of royal insignia contains an op- 
pressive mass of gold, precious stones, and gor- 
geous apparel. There are the Kazan and Astra- 
khan crowns before they were united with Russia, 
and that of Vladimir Monomaque, whose wife 
was the daughter of Harold, king of England, at 
the time of the battle of Hastings — compounds of 
pearls and jewels counted by the hundreds, and 
held together by filigree gold with Greek crosses 
at the top. 

The sceptre of Vladimir, about a yard in length. 



MOSCOW. 321 



contains 270 large diamonds and 300 rubies and 
emeralds. Another crown possesses 900 dia- 
monds, and the cross rises from an immense ruby. 
Among the regalia now used at coronations is a 
girdle of large diamonds ; a sceptre containing the 
great diamond Lazaref, one of the largest known ; 
the emperor's crown, made entirely of diamonds, 
a row of immense pearls, and an uncut ruby an 
inch long. The empress's crown is equally rich, 
but smaller, and is fastened on with diamond 
hair-pins. A curious relic is the chain of 
Michael, the first of the Romanoffs, composed of 
ninety-nine rings, each of which is engraved with 
one of his titles, accompanied by a short prayer. 

The beauty of workmanship in all these baubles 
is as remarkable as their value. 

The velvet state robes are as ornate as those in 
the sacristy of the Synod, and thrones of ancient 
date might verify the biblical stories of "King 
Solomon in all his glory." One that came from 



322 RUSSIAN DAYS. 

Persia is of ivory studded with 875 diamonds, 
1223 rubies, besides turquoises and pearls innu- 
merable. One great room is devoted to many 
hundred articles of all ages and countries, for 
state use and decoration, in the way of pitchers, 
goblets, vases, candelabra, etc. , of gold and silver 
with everv wild variation of ornamentation, hio;-h 
and low relief 

In view of the accumulated wealth in churches, 
palaces, monasteries, and treasuries throughout 
the empire, Monte Cristo's caves and Schehere- 
zade's fables appear very credible possibilities ; and 
though tolerably familiar with similar collections 
in other countries, we said a few^ days later, as we 
sauntered through the Green Vaults at Dresden, 
''There is nothing really splendid outside of 
Russia." However, everything has its point of 
advantage ; we were sated with splendor ; we de- 
clared we never wanted to see another diamond ; 
and swinging the pendulum to the extreme tip 



MOSCOM^\ 323 



of its arc, we exclaimed, " Give us love in a hut, 
with water and a crust !' 

No one can study IMoscow for even a few days 
without feeling an interest and admiration that 
few cities can inspire. Others are palimpsests of 
change and perhaps progression ; ]\Ioscow re- 
sists new inscriptions and clings to its sacred past. 
We were more than ever sympathetic with it when 
we looked down from the "Sparrows" Hill," four 
miles distant, on the broad panorama of its stately 
architecture with its golden fringe of minarets and 
domes. This was the view which first met the eyes 
of Napoleon when he stood on this hill, seventy- 
four years ago, and watched the advance of his 
eager battalions from three different points. But 
no Russian forces appeared to contest the way, and 
an ominous stillness pervaded the air. The em- 
peror galloped with his staff to one of the barriers 
and halted there, expecting to receive the keys of 
the city. He might as well have waited for her- 



;24 RUSSIAN DAYS. 



aids from a city of the dead : three hundred thou- 
sand inhabitants were flying northward, and only 
sufferers in hospitals and prisoners in dungeons 
remained to mock the entrance of ''la grande 
an?iee." Then began the holocaust previously 
prepared by the Muscovites of their beloved and 
revered city ; the conflagration lasted three days, 
and the mortified invader found himself the mark 
of the scorn and reproach of all Europe. The 
familiar details of the tragedy are recalled by the 
traveller with painful realism. 

We returned to St. Petersburg for a day, and 
then took the rail for Berlin. As far as the German 
frontier at Eydkuhnen, twenty-four hours, the car- 
riages, the stations, and rail afford entire com- 
fort, though the scenery has no interest ; the re- 
maining twelve hours the railway is very rough. 

Our Russian Days had ceased to be, and our 
Norway Nights were poems of the past. Sun, 



MOSCOW. 



325 



moon, and stars resumed possession of the sky ; 
we had come back to the tyranny of dates and 
divisions of time ; the Hour to Retire walked in 
with his lamp, the Hour to Rise threw open the 
window. No longer, for the year of grace 1886, 
could be found the gladsome inconsequence of 
''Theure qui plait a voire Majeste" 




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